Professor at Universidade Aberta (UAb), the Portuguese Open University, since 1991, where he heads the Department of Education and Distance Learning, and a researcher at the University of Lisbon. He’s also a Director at Ibstpi – International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction.
He received his training in Philosophy at the University of Lisbon (PhD – 2003) and in online education at the University of Turku. He was Pro-rector for innovation in Distance Learning at Universidade Aberta (2006-09) and the President of EDEN – European Distance and E-learning Network (2013-16).
From 2007 to 2009, he was member of the Academic and Administration boards of Asia’s International Open University (UAIA) and of the Portuguese Rectors Council (CRUP) specialized committees on Scientific Research and Knowledge Transfer, and Evaluation, Quality and Innovation. Presently he’s a member of the International Advisory Board of the Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance of the Massey University (New Zealand). He’s also the Vice-president of the Ad Lucem Association (University of Lisbon) and is on the scientific board of a number of international journals in education.
Over the years he has participated in more than twenty international research projects, funded by the European Commission or the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and has been a member of several task forces on open educational resources, lifelong learning, virtual mobility and sustainable development.
He has delivered over one hundred and fifty presentations at international conferences and published close to one hundred scientific articles and other publications. He was a visiting scholar at the Korean National Open University and received an EDEN Senior Fellowship amongst other awards.