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Centre for Online and Distance Education

Jon Gregson

A founding fellows of the University of London Centre for Distance Education

Jon is Director of Development Dreamers Ltd and is currently based in UK. Jon was one of the founding fellows of the University of London Centre for Distance Education, and has a keen interest in mobile learning, MOOCs, OERs and capacity development for distance education in developing countries.

He now works as an international development consultant, focusing on the role of distance learning, and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in addressing development goals.  Since 2002 he has been a tutor, research supervisor and examiner on the University of London postgraduate degree programme for international distance learning students.

He currently has responsibility for the 'Managing Knowledge and Communication for Development' module offered through the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

His past roles have included being Director of Global Networks and Communities for University of London which included overall responsibility for the online learning strategy, and being Head of the Knowledge Services Department at the Institute of Development Studies  (IDS) which is based at the University of Sussex.

Whilst at IDS, he had oversight of the British Library of Development Studies (BLDS), and headed up the 'Mobilising Knowledge for Development Project', funded by DFID, which played a significant role in developing capacity of knowledge intermediary organisations in Africa, and in promoting open access approaches.

In 2015, Jon led an IDS team on a research project, using foresight methodologies, to explore future scenarios for ‘The future of Knowledge Sharing in a Digital Age', and he subsequently organised a CODE workshop with SOAS exploring scenarios for the future of distance learning.

He has lived and worked in Nepal and Kenya, and travelled extensively as part of his work. His recent have projects included contributing to higher education strategy development in Myanmar and Ghana working as a member of Open University UK teams.