Michael G. Moore is known in
academic circles for his leadership in promoting the
scholarship of distance education in the United States. He
published his first statement of theory about distance
education in 1972 and has achieved a number of firsts in
this field. While teaching the first graduate course in this
subject at University of Wisconsin in the mid 70s he was
contributory to founding the national annual conference
there.
Coming to Penn State in 1986 he
founded the first American journal (American Journal of
Distance Education), established the first Sequence of
taught graduate courses, a national research symposium, and
an online community of interest (DEOS). Before joining Penn
State in 1986 he worked for nine years at the British Open
University and has experience of teaching in all
technologies and most client groups.
Moore has served on the
editorial boards of all the main distance education journals
and his publications include Contemporary Issues in
American Distance Education (Pergamon Press, 1990), Distance
Education: A Systems View, co-authored with Greg
Kearsley (Wadsworth Publishers, 1996 and 2005), subsequently
published in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and the Handabook
of Distance Education (2003 and 2007).
Academic degrees in both
economics and education and an early seven-year career in
African education led to a lifelong interest in education
for development. This has included employment at the World
Bank and numerous consulting assignments for UNESCO, the
International Monetary Fund, and the Commonwealth of
Learning as well as several foreign governments.
