The Conference Welcome Ceremony of the EDEN 2021 Virtual Annual Conference on Monday, 21 June at 18.00 CEST was remarkable on many levels. Besides officially launching the virtual, three and a half days long Conference hosted by UNED – Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, the President of EDEN, Sandra Kučina Softić presented the most prestigious annual awards of our community: the EDEN Senior Fellow Awards and the 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. The introduction of the EDEN Fellow Awards system of professional acknowledgement, took first place at the 2007 Annual Conference in Naples. In the last 12 years, over 100 Fellow and Senior Fellow awards have been granted by the decision of the EDEN Executive Committee. The Fellows Council including all EDEN Fellows, was launched in 2018 during the EDEN Conference in Genova, as forum, advisory group and think-tank supporting the EDEN Board.

The EDEN Senior Fellow Awards are given:

“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” to

Professor Ulf-Daniel Ehlers

Ulf is a learning innovation expert. Founder of mindful-leaders.net, and Professor for Educational Management and Lifelong Learning at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Karlsruhe since 2011. At the University of Bielefeld, he finished his Ph.D. in Technology Enhanced Learning in 2003. His habilitation was awarded in 2008 from the University of Duisburg-Essen.

From 2011-2017 he held the position of Vicepresident at the same university and has been responsible for Quality and Academic Affairs. He also held positions as Associate Professor of different German universities and Associate Professor of the Graduate School for Management of the University of Maryland University College in the USA. 

Ulf is author/ editor of more than 15 books and 150 scholarly articles with over 3000 academic citations. He is a trained coach, facilitator and expert for mindful communication, 

In EDEN he holds the Fellow degree for as long as 2003 and Member of the Executive Committee since 2018. Keynote and author of several papers, leader of workshops at the conferences.

Ulf has been active around the European innovations and movements in learning, in particular related to quality. He serves for years as Vice-President of EURASHE, the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education 

In EDEN, his recent contributions and initiatives helped substantially the structured strategy building and think tank foresight actions, paving the way towards the next generation of progress of EDEN.

Diana Andone

Dr.ingenieur Diana Andone is the Director of the eLearning Center of Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, responsible for planning and implementing digital technologies, online learning technologies, and the university award winning Virtual Campus. She is also associate professor at the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, in the area of multimedia, interactive and web technologies. 

Diana holds a PhD in Designing eLearning Spaces for Digital Students with Brighton University, UK, author of 17 books, 100 research papers, 11 Best Paper Awards and earmarks over 30 research and educational projects, mainly funded by the European Commission. 

She is passionate about the ubiquitous access to technologies and how they can be used to improve people’s life. Actively promotes the use of OERs, MOOCs and the open education principles, acting in several international associations actively supports the start-up movements and Girls in Tech, Women in Tech and STEM education. 

She also acts in the Board of Romanian NGOs, in Timisoara 2021 European Capital of Culture Task Force. 

Dr. Andone is EDEN Vice-President for Communication and Communities, and Education Chair in IEEE Romania Section. She has been the engine of modernisation of the communication of the Association in both applying cutting edge technologies and building up a contemporary system of information flows. 

During the decades of affiliation to EDEN in different roles and capacities, she has enriched our conferences by countless papers, workshops, webinars, courses. 

As host of the EDEN Webinar Series during the COVID period and the first EDEN Virtual Annual Conference with the background of her University, helped to lay down the basics of a new culture for EDEN in the online and virtual events’ organisation.

Timothy Read

Tim is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Languages and Systems at UNED. He did his first degree in Real Time Computer Science at the University of The West of England and his Doctorate in Cognitive Science at the University of Birmingham After leaving England, he has worked at the University of Granada before moving to UNED in Madrid.

He is the co-founder of the ATLAS research group and has directed several national and international funded projects on applying Information and Communication Technologies to Languages for Specific Purposes. 

Timothy Read ic s currently working in the areas of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning and Language Massive Open Online Courses, and the role of analytics in these areas.

Tim has also been a member of diverse scientificcommittees. As well as his academic career, he has worked in different international companies including Rolls Royce, Hewlett Packard, and I.T.T. 

As EDEN Vice-President for Open Professional Collaboration Tim has been providing valuable support for identifying and implementing the potentials and opportunities for the development of the EDEN organisation and the international, inter-institutional co-operation, strengthening the outreach and impact of the Association, improving the efficiency of the governance.

The Fellow Award is

“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”.

Dr. Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl

Mairéad is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow, with the National Institute of Digital Learning in Dublin City University, researching digital innovation and implementation in higher education. 

She is the institutional lead on micro-credentials and has conducted the first national micro-credential survey of employers and employees in Ireland. She serves on a national steering committee to develop and implement a national approach to the development and delivery of micro-credentials with other sectoral stakeholders. She is a Fulbright Scholar with the University of Notre Dame in the USA and lectures in Information Technology in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in DCU. 

Mairéad is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education (ETHE) and on the board of ALT-J and is an active reviewer for a number of journals. 

Formerly the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Humanities and Social She has served on numerous European and National Policy Groups in the area of ICT and Higher Education. Mairéad has gained considerable experience managing and leading internal and external policy and research projects and was appointed as a university fellow in 2008 for the implementation of the Academic Framework for Innovation within DCU. 

Contributor to several EDEN webinars. Author of several conference papers and played important role in introducing her students to the EDEN community. At the Genova Annual Conference, her student received the Young Scholar award.

Giselle M. S. Ferreira

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Gisella is Lecturer at the Catholic University of do Rio de Janeiro 

She worked earlier as Associate Professor at the Universidade Estácio de Sá as Lecturer in the Post-Graduate Programme in Education. 

She was faculty member of the Open University UK as Visiting Research Fellow and Lecturer, Department of Communication and Systems 

Studied at the University of York (PhD in the field of Music),  at the Open University (MEd) and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (MSc, Engineering)

Dr Ferreira has been one of the most active members of the EURODL Editorial Board

In the last years she revised over 20 papers, proving always high commitment, reliability, providing valuable guidance for the authors)

Contributed to several EDEN conferences as author.

Elena Caldirola

EDEN EC member Director of the eLearning Center of the University Pavia, Italy

Elena is Director of the eLearning Center of the University of Pavia since 2010. She has a master degree in Political Science and a Postgraduate Specialisation in eLearning Management and Digital Communication. Skilled in eLearning environments, MOOCs, Learning Spaces, Blended Learning, Digital Corporate Training, and online learning. Since 2009 she takes part in the eLearning Task Force of the Coimbra Group. From 2013 until 2015 she was Chair of their eLearning Task Force recently as well, member of the Education Innovation group. 

Since 2012 she is member of the Scientific Board of the Italian eLearning Society.

Since 2018 she takes part in the Executive Board of EDEN. Contributor to several EDEN webinars as speaker, member of 4 EDEN conference committees, author of conference papers. 

ELENA has lead one of the strategic EDEN activities about the EDEN future.

By her initiative, EDEN was invited to contribute to the project ChildCA – Improvement of CHILDdren care teaching as a template for upgrading medical education in Central Asia – as Associate Partner. 

Teresa Romeu

Teresa currently works at the Psychology and Educational Sciences Studies, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She does research in Higher Education, eLearning and Adult Education. Their important current projects are ’Horizon2020′ Demonstration of a scalable and cost-effective cloud-based digital learning infrastructure through the Certification of digital competences, and the Erasmus+ ’Expertise, best practices and teaching in the XXI century’and the ’Digital Literacy and Social Emotional Learning for Engagement and Employement

She has been author of a high number of  EDEN conference papers and finalist in the Best Research Paper competition. Has provided valuable support to the the organisation of the 2018 Barcelona EDEN Research Workshop.

Dr. Daniel Domínguez 

Dr Dominguez is professor and researcher at UNED. His research focuses on technological mediation and the theories that support digital learning and online socialization. In his recent work he has delved into the analysis of social learning, open educational resources and knowledge management in digital and mixed environments. Currently he is Board of Directors of @CyberPractices.

He has been author of several EDEN Conference papers and member of the Madrid conference committee. He also and supported the PhD Symposium in the panel of experts.

His Research fields are: Connected Learning, Educational Research, Internet Research, Learning Theories, Learning Along life, open educational resources, open learning, digital mediation.

Got Bachelor of Philosophy and Sciences from UNED, Diploma in Teaching University of Oviedo, Master in Educational Informatics at UNED and PhD from UNED again in 2005. 

Worked as Teacher-tutor UNED 02 / 2004-06 / 2014, received  Fellowship F.P.U. (Spanish Ministry of Education fellowship (Formación de Profesorado Universitario, Ministerio de Educación)  at the Teacher Training Center 11 

Participated in several of national and international R&D projects financed in public calls like Digital environments for debate, argumentation and collective knowledge, Virtual Spain, E-EXCELLENCE in a National, European and World perspective (NEXT), Open Educational Innovation and Incubation,  STRATEGICOM: Establishing a University Communication Structure