Som Naidu

 PhD; D. Litt. (Honoris Causa) Pro-Vice Chancellor Flexible Learning, Professor and Director of the Centre for Flexible Learning, The University of the South Pacific. Immediate Past President (the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia). Principal Associate (Technology, Education and Design Solutions)

 Biography

 Dr. Som Naidu has spent most of his professional life in the higher education sector in a variety of roles to do with enhancing learning and teaching practices in open, flexible and distance and online education, as well as education more generally, in various jurisdictions and geographical locations. Prior to his current roles, Dr. Naidu served as Associate Professor (Learning Transformations) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. From October 2008 to April 2013, he served as Associate Professor and Director of Teaching and Learning Quality Enhancement and Evaluation of Learning and Teaching at Charles Sturt University, NSW Australia, and prior to that he was, for eleven years, Associate Professor of Educational Technology and Multimedia Education as well as Head of Research and Evaluation in the field at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

 Dr. Naidu possesses undergraduate qualifications in Education (curriculum and instruction) from the University of Waikato in New Zealand and graduate qualifications in Distance Education and in Educational Technology from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He has undertaken sabbaticals in the Institute for Learning Sciences in the Graduate School of Computer Sciences at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA (1997), in the Learning and Teaching Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Learning and Development Directorate at the University of London, United Kingdom (2003/2004), and in the Centre for Research, Innovation and Training in eLearning, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (2012).

 Dr. Naidu possesses an extensive record of research and scholarship in the broad field of open, flexible and distance education, and especially in designing and implementing capacity building workshops in the areas of open educational practices, online learning and elearning. His professional consultancies in the field include numerous capacity building projects in course and curriculum design and development, online learning and elearning in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Belize, Namibia, Western Samoa, Maldives and the Solomon Islands. In May 2014 the Open University of Sri Lanka awarded Dr. Naidu a D.Litt. (Honoris Causa), in recognition of his extensive contribution to the field of open, flexible, distance and e-learning both regionally and internationally.