 Hello, and welcome to the Eden Annual Conference 2021. It gives me enormous pleasure to welcome you to this event, which is nominally being held in Madrid, although in reality we're in the comfort of our own homes, which is a bit of a shame because it's, we have a nice balmy afternoon here, it's 21 degrees and really quite comfortable. And I much rather see you here with a glass of champagne or something equivalent in your hands than your faces on my monitor, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, as they say. Yes, as I said, welcome to the conference. I think it's going to be a very, very interesting and engaged conference this year. We've had the highest numbers ever, which I think is a reflection really of the subject matter of the conference. It's been a difficult, shall we say, challenging year for all of us with the pandemic. I think that's directly affected most of us and it's something we try to capture in the title and subject area of the conference. And I think over the next few days it's going to be really very interesting listening to our colleagues and sharing our experiences through this period of time. So without more to do, as I say, welcome. I hope you have a very positive and enjoyable time and I'll hand over to the president to welcome you as well. Thank you, Tim. I really do need the glass of champagne whether online or in face to face. So hello, everyone. Welcome to one more Eden annual conference. Unfortunately, online, but maybe this enabled us to be jointly in a higher number than maybe we could get when face to face. I was definitely planning to go to Madrid to visit again the Museum of Tyson Barometer, which is really something special for me. But well, I'll take advantage of that next time, Tim. So maybe another conference should be in Madrid, you know, because what they say when you're present in person it counts much more than online, but nevertheless, definitely. We have proved that being present online is just as good as a face to face. We can contribute, definitely. We can discuss, we can share, we can talk. We can have some virtual tours and see the cities and museums, but nevertheless, we are not there. We have seen that last year in Timshara, but definitely we have been able to organize one very good conference again this year. I'm very thankful to UNED for hosting this conference and for putting great efforts to make it really something special. The title of this year conference is lessons from pandemic for the future education. I think that in front all of us is a questions, how we can take advantage of how can we integrate, how can we build upon on the lessons we have learned so far and all the knowledge and expertise we have got so far. How can make it better for all of us based on this knowledge we have received? And during three days, but this one, first one we can count as well. During four days, you will be able to hear your colleagues and their papers, their opinions, ideas, results, research results, case studies, projects, all what have been done during this time to make our future better. Also, one of the question is why it is always everything so slowly in education? Why all these changes, which somewhere happening much faster are going so slowly in education? Why we are not eager to take new things much more quickly than in other things as in education? Actually, definitely something takes time so there's a reason why it's not happening so fast. But I'm certain that during this conference you will take home really good ideas, good know-how which you can build upon your further work, your further research, your further way of teaching or learning. And I'm very happy that we have really high number of participants as I said in the presentation report, 370 participants, 53 papers and additional number of other contributions. I think that in the beginning, these numbers state that this conference is going to be really good. And not to take too much time, I know that it comes to the end of the day and it will be definitely very nice to have the champagne somewhere in Madrid when sun is going down on the horizon and chatting with the colleagues and friends, being happy to meet them again. But we have to think about, we have to imagine this and I'm certain that we will be able to do that. So, Tim, let's say that we officially opened this year annual conference, Eden 2021 and we celebrate 30 years of Eden as well with these activities. So I'm very happy that we have started our conference now. For the next item on our agenda, as we definitely now have took some sip of champagne so it's easy and relaxing. We have presentation of Eden Senior Fellows and Fellows Award. Very important thing for Eden as we will, we always cherish our members. We always want to acknowledge their excellence and it is very important that we recognize their efforts and their work within Eden Association. So I kindly ask Secretariat if we do have a slide or something to share. Otherwise, I will just pronounce the awards. Okay, maybe we do not have anything in slides. Okay, so this year we have Eden Fellows and Eden Senior Fellows Award, which have been agreed with Eden Executive Committee and I'm very happy to say that this is the, first I will going to present Eden Senior Fellows. These awards are a system of professional acknowledgement and they took the first place, first time but they were held in 2007 in annual conference in Naples. So from that till today, over 100 Fellows and Senior Fellows Awards have been granted by decision of Eden Executive Committee. So really impressive number. So in 2021 annual conference, this is really nice occasion to present the award. So Eden Senior Fellow Awards are given in recognition of contribution to development of open distance and e-learning Europe and for valued commitment and support to evolution and progress of Eden. So these are Eden Senior Fellows for 2021. I will start from Tim because he's nearest to me now. Eden our host at UNED from UNED at this year conference but also the Eden Vice President for Open Professional Collaboration. And I would say my right hand, I have three right hands because I have three vice presidents. Tim is Senior Lecturer in Department of Computer Languages and Systems at UNED. He did the 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 University of Granada before moving to UNED in Madrid. He's 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. Tim is currently working in the areas of mobile assistant language learning and language massive open online courses and the role of analytics in these areas. Tim has also been a member of diverse scientific committees as well as his academic career. He has worked in different international companies as well. As Eden Vice President for Open Professional Collaboration, he has been providing valuable support to identifying and implementing the potentials and opportunities for development of Eden organization and the international institutional cooperation strengthening the outreach and impact of association, improving the efficiency and governance. So, Tim, thank you for being with Eden and for all your efforts so far. It means I expect you to work even harder after this. Thank you very much, Sander. It's a great honor to be part of this select group and to carry on being able to work closer with my colleagues and friends in Eden. It really is a great honor. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. And now, the second person who has received the Eden Senior Fellow Award, my dear colleague, Diana Andonev, from the University of Politecnica team Shwara, Romania, also Eden Vice President for Collaboration. It's my second right hand so far. So, Diana is director of the eLearning Center of Politecnica University of Tim Shwara, responsible for planning and implementing digital technologies, online learning technologies and the University Award-winning virtual campus. She's also associate professor at the Politecnica University of Tim Shwara in the area of multimedia, interactive and web technologies. Diana holds a PhD in designing eLearning spaces for digital students with Brighton University UK. She's author of 17 books, 100 research papers, 11 best paper awards and earmarks, over 30 research and educational projects mainly founded by the European Commission. She's passionate about ubiquitous access to technologies and how they can be used to improve people's life, actively promotes the US OER MOOCs and the open education principles, acting in several international associations, actively supports the startup movements and girls in tech, women in tech and STEM education. She also acts in the board of Romanian NGOs in Tim Shwara 2021 European Capital of Culture Task Force. She, as I said, is vice president for communication and communities and education chair in IEEE Romania section. She has been the engine of modernization of the communication of the association in both applying cutting edge technologies and building up contemporary system of information flows. During the decades of affiliation to Eden in different roles and capacity, she has enriched our conferences by countless papers workshop webinars courses. And as the host of Eden webinar series during COVID period and the first Eden virtual annual conference with background of her university, she helped lay down the basic of the new culture for Eden in online in virtual events organization. So Diana, thank you for being with us. And I hope you will stay for many years ahead. Do you want to say a few words? Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Sandra. And thank you, Eden and European community for giving me this award. I'm really humbled by this achievement. I need to say my first Eden meeting was in 96. So it's a long time since I was with Eden and the conferences and from Budapest, Bernada and all of the European fact. I need to thank Antonio, Irina and Sandra, the three presidents which I served as executive committee and as vice president, especially with the last two and the entire executive committee and fellows and NAP committee, which was very supportive to all the crazy actions. If I can say that and ideas which I have thrown into the air and they catch the balls with the tremendous support of the secretariat, which was really great. And I'm really happy that I was able to do this. And I will be around Eden for longer. So you haven't got rid of me. This is only an encouragement. Thank you all. Thank you again. Thank you, Diana. Of course we count on you in the future. So I hope you will be there for us. And the last Eden senior fellow award for this year goes to Daniel Ellers from Baden-Württemberg Corporate State University in Germany, who is also the keynote at this Eden annual conference and really good friend for a number of years. Wolf is learning innovation expert, founder of Mindful Learners Net and Professor for Educational Management and Lifelog Learning and Baden-Württemberg Corporate State University in Karlsruhe since 2019. At the University of Bielfeld, he finished his PhD in technology and hence learning in 2003. His habitation was awarded in 2008 from the University of Duisburg-Essen. From 2011 to 2017, he held the position of vice president at the same university and has been responsible for quality and academic affairs. He also held position as associate professor of different German universities and associate professor of the Graduate School for Management of the University of Maryland University College in USA. Wolf is author or editor of more than 15 books and 150 scholarly articles with over 3,000 academic citation. He's trained coach, facilitator and expert for Mindful Communication. In Eden, he holds the fellow degree for as long as 2003 and he's member of the Executive Committee since 2018. He's keynote and author of several people's leaders of the workshop at the conferences. Wolf has been active around European innovation and movements in learning in particularly related to the quality. He serves for years as vice president of Euril Asse, the European Association of Institutions in High Education. In Eden, his recent contributions and initiatives helped substantially the structured strategy building and think tank foresight activities paving the ways toward the next generation of progress of Eden. So Wolf, thank you for all the contributions so far and I'm also very happy that you have been reelecting for the next three years in the Eden Executive Committee. So lots of work is in front of us. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you very much. I feel really honored and it's meaning a lot to me. Thank you very much. I'm also, I'm turning 50 this year and I think that's why senior is a good title. I understand now the meaning of it. Thank you very much. You're still young boy for me. I have passed 50. So well, I'm very happy to have young colleagues in the Executive Committee. So my congratulations to Eden Senior Fellows 2021 again and let's move now to the Eden Fellow Awards. We have a number of Eden Fellow Awards this year, five in total and Eden 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 valuable support to the evolution and progress of Eden. Well, let me start first. First is, well, I know she's called Mayred but her name is very difficult for me to pronounce but Mayred Nick Jola Mitchell, if I said it correctly, please don't be angry with me. So Mayred is coming from Dublin City University in Ireland. She's associate professor and senior research fellow at the National Institute of Digital Learning and she's researching digital innovation and implementation in higher education. She's the institutional lead on micro-credentials and has conducted the first national micro-credential survey of employers and employees in Ireland. She serves on the National Steering Committee to develop and implement a national approach to the development and delivery of micro-credentials with other sectoral stakeholders. She is full bright scholar with the University of Notre Dame in USA and lectures in information technology in the faculty of humanities and social sciences in DCU. Mayred is co-editor in chief of the International Journal of Education Technology in High Education and on the board of OutJ and is an active reviewer for a number of journals. Formerly the associate dean of teaching and learning the faculty of humanities and social sciences. She has served on numerous European and national policy groups in the area of ICT and high education as well. Mayred has gained considerable experience managing and leading internal and external policy and research project and was appointed as university fellow in 2008 in the implementation of 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. A general annual conference, her students received the Young Scholar Award. I'm very happy, Mayred, to have you in the Eden Fellows this year. Congratulations. Thank you very much, Sandra. Kermila Mahogot Agustal Ward, our father of Eden, big, big thank you and to all of the Eden board and to the Eden community. Obviously no woman or man is an island and I've really great appreciation to the team that I work with in the National Institute of Digital Learning. Big shout out to my mentor there, Professor Mark Brown and to all my colleagues because I think this is just the reflection of all the work that we do in the National Institute of Digital Learning in DCU. So, Mila Guilchas Agustal Ward. Thank you, Mayred. Irish is very good. I cannot repeat on Irish anything, but well, thank you. OK, so the next fellow is Giselle Ferreira for Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. She is lecturer there and she worked earlier as associate professor at the... Sorry, university data, Estacia Dessa Alec as lecturer in the post-graduate program in education. She was faculty member of the Open University UK as visiting research fellow and lecturer, Department of Communication and Systems. She studied at the University of York and at the Open University and the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro. Giselle has been one of the most active members of Euroville Editorial Board. In the last years, she revised over 20 papers providing always height commitment, reliability, providing valuable guidance for the authors. She also contributed to several hidden conferences as authors. So, my congratulations to Giselle. I know she isn't there with us today. Because she has other important task. But my congratulations to her. The next fellow is our colleague Elena Calderola from University of Pavia, Italy, who is already an Executive Committee member. She is director of eLearning Center of the University of Pavia since 2010. And she has a master degree in political science and postgraduate specialization in eLearning management and digital communication. She is skilled in eLearning and environment books, learning spaces, blended learning, digital corporate training and online learning. Since 2009, she takes part in eLearning Task Force of Coimbra Group. From 2013 to 2015, she was chair of the eLearning Task Force and recently as well, she's a member of Education Innovation Group. Since 2012, she's member of the Scientific Board of the Italian eLearning Society. Since 2018, she takes part in Executive Board of Eden and she's contributor to several Eden webinars as pCAPT. She's member of four Eden Conference committees and author of conference paper. Elena has led one of the strategic Eden activities about Eden future and also with Ulf and also she, by her initiative, Eden was invited to contribute to project Child Central Asia on improvement of children care teaching as a template for upgrading medical education in Central Asia as Eden has joined as associate partners. So Elena, congratulations. Thank you very much, Sandra, and thank you very much to all the whole Eden family because I just consider Eden as a great family. I learned a lot and I really hope to give my best contribution, both as a Eden AC member and as a fellow. I found this environment, if I can say, like as a just-band team because I found a set of rules, a framework, very great organization, but in this organization, there is such an inclusive approach and the people in this way can really do and offer the best. So I really think my feeling is to continue in this way. Thank you very much for what I have learned and I really think to be able to do the best efforts for the success of this organization, both Eden and fellow. Thank you very much, Sandra. Thank you very much to all the Eden people. Thank you, Elena. It's always pleasure to work with you. So let's move on. The next Eden fellow is coming from University of Verda de Carvaluña. It's Teresa Romeo. She works currently at the Psychology and Educational Sciences Studies there and she does research in high education, e-learning and adult education. Their important current projects are Horizon 2020, demonstration of the scalable and cost-effective cloud-based digital learning infrastructure for certification of digital competencies and the Rasmus Plus expertise best practices in teaching in 21st century and the digital literacy and social-emotional learning for engagement and employment. Teresa has been author of high number of Eden conference papers and finalist in the best research paper competition. She has provided valuable support to the organization of 2018 Barcelona Eden Research Workshop. So Teresa, welcome to the Eden Family Fellows. Congratulations. Thank you so much. They are delegates, colleagues and the people who are watching us for streaming. For me it's an honor and a pride to recite the Eden fellow nomination. Yes, my international career in Eden context began in 2006. Since then I have participated in different events, conferences and workshops that Eden has been organizing during these years. In 2018 we were nominated for the best research paper award during the 10th Eden Research Workshop. My other colleagues and I are researchers in the EDULAR research group at WOC, as researchers and also as a professor at Open University of Catalonia. I'm very proud and satisfied with this nomination. And from now on I will contribute to online teaching and learning at my university and we will continue to share the results with Eden. Happy 30th birthday. Thank you very much. All the best for all and best regards from Barcelona. Thank you. Thank you, Teresa. Congratulations again. And last but not least, Dr. Daniel Dominguez. Well, you have to wait because we have four ladies before, so you are now in the role. So Daniel Dominguez is professor and researchers at UNED. His research focuses on technological mediation and theories that support digital learning and online socialization. In his recent work, he has developed, he has delved into analysis of social learning, open educational resources and knowledge management in digital and mixed environment. Currently he is a board of directors of cyber practices. He has been author of several Eden conference papers and a member of the Madrid Conference Committee. He also supported the PhD symposium and he will join us in the panel of the experts there. I know he was busy this morning, but Daniel, congratulations. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity. It would be a pleasure for me to contribute to this project. Eden is for sure a major player in the field of learning and digital education in general. So thank you for having me on board as a fellow and can't wait to start collaborating with the rest of my colleagues and with all of you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Daniel. I'm certain we'll see each other in the next Eden activities definitely during this conference. I know you're on the board. So definitely this day as well. So my congratulations to all Eden fellows and senior fellows. I'm happy that our family is growing, that we have managed to have this culture of sharing, of knowledge and expertise and awarding those who are best of us. And now I am giving back the word to Tim. Well, after such long talk, and I have been speaking really a lot, Tim, you are able now to say a few words again. Thank you very much, Sandra. I'd just like to reiterate what everyone's been saying in the chat. To congratulations to everyone. It's a wonderful feeling. And I really look forward to working with you or continuing to work with the people I'm working with at the moment and work with the new people who've joined. So I mean, I really wish I were able to say this to you with a nice table of food and drink ahead. So you'd be looking at the table and thinking, God, why doesn't he shut up so we can indulge? I'm afraid I can't give you that. But I'll still, nonetheless, try to be as brief as possible. I mean, what I'd like to do next is briefly present my two colleagues, the Rapporteurs, for this conference, Kauranga, Rodrigo and Mark Brown. And before I hand over them to give us a bit of anticipation of what I hope to see in this conference. Let me very briefly present them. So I mean, Kauranga Rodrigo is an Indian fellow. She's the ex-Provice Chancellor of Technology at UNED, who's the founding chair of the Digital Inclusion Laboratory, which was co-founded by Vodafone in Spain, the sub-director of transfer research and innovation of the School of Computer Engineering at UNED and co-director of the InnoDoc Research Group of Innovative User Interaction to Accessible Digital Objects and Collections. She's also the member of the Advisory Board of Disability Care at UNED, a co-director of Empower, the Working Group Institution Support of ICT, Media and Educational Support Services of the EADTU and an Auditor of E-Excellence Quality, Assurance in E-Learning and MOOCs. And Mark, Mike Brown, he's Eden Fellow and Treasurer. He holds Ireland's first chair of Digital Learning and is the director of the National Institute for Digital Learning at DCU at Dublin City University. He serves on several international journal editorial boards and has published extensively in the areas of online blended and digital learning. And I've read quite a bit of what he's written and it's actually not that bad. He was president of the New Zealand Association for Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, the ANS, prior to his arrival at DCU and was until recently Treasurer and Executive Committee member of the Australian Society for Computers and Learning in Tertiary Education. He's a recipient of a National Award for Sustain Excellence in Tertiary Teaching and remains a member of the New Zealand Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence. And finally, he currently chairs the Innovation in Teaching and Learning Steering Committee for the European Commission of Innovation and the University's ECIU Board. Thank you very much to both of you. So I'd like you to let us know how you're gonna go about being the repertoires at this year's leading conference. Should I start? Okay, thank you very much, Tim, for the nice introduction. It's a great honor for me to be here today and I feel humbled to participate in this new edition as a co-reporter. So I believe that the pandemic has brought not only bad things but also good things to our lives and this sector. And I think it has highlighted the different learning modalities and the support that the technology can offer to this new learning paradigm. So nowadays, I think in learning is achieving broader scopes and up to this hybrid modes are not really new. So they are more on a systematic use of with new technological tools. And there is an emphasis on these video based campuses and new tools based on artificial intelligence that they could help us to achieve more personalized and more engaging and perform a better or more accurate assessment of our students performance and interaction. So the other lie in danger is that we might lose the leadership of this trend. So I hope not. And I'm sure that all of the papers included in this conference program are top 10 in all the areas and we'll show the added value that the research and the most of all expertise with this network of people and the high level of research groups that are involved in the conference. So I wish you all the week of fruitful exchanges with this virtual presensuality. So I promise that I will be there with you in all the sessions and try to do my best to narrate your main achievements and results. So thank you team for the opportunity of developing this new job for me. Well, I guess Tim, after that embarrassing introduction, I'm going to have to do a pretty good job in trying to weave together or tease apart all of the different conversations that are going to take place over the next few days. Because it is Eden's 30th year, I couldn't help but take myself back to, I wonder what the conference was like 30 years ago. I have, I didn't search to see if I could find a program. Someone must have been at that conference. I certainly wasn't. And I was looking at this year's program. It starts off tomorrow with a presentation, a keynote back to the future. Of course, the film back to the future dates from 1985. So even more than 30 years ago, but some of us are old enough to remember those times. And then speaking of old times in a really nice light, I can't think of anyone better tomorrow than Diana Loralad in terms of her contribution over the 30 year period to the field. It was, I think, 1993, if I recall correctly, that she first published the conversational framework in a seminal book that went on to be republished. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from Diana. When you look at the program, and I've tried to sort of glance through what I'm going to be able to participate in, because I can't be in all the sessions. I'm hoping that I'll be able to dabble with some of the recorded video over the next few days. Some themes, I think, would have been there back 30 years ago, but actually the vast majority are new. And we tend to think that the more things change, the more things stay the same. I'm not sure that's entirely true. For example, learning analytics, artificial intelligence, micro-credentials, they're all on the program tomorrow. Wellness, digital ecosystems, the concept of an ecosystem, I don't think was something we were talking about 30 years ago. And then there's even on the final day, if I checked the program correctly, a focus on creative industry. So showing how the field has moved both horizontally as well as vertically, if you like. Some things, though, given I said, don't always change, assessment shows up. And 30 years ago, we were putting students into large examination halls, getting them to write with their pens for three hours. Prior to COVID coming along, we were still doing that. I wonder if in the shadow of COVID, and there's a very strong theme around resilience that I've seen in a number of the papers and strands, I wonder if that's something we're going to challenge over the next few days, along with some other sacred cows from over the last 30 years. So I'm looking forward to the program. I note that there are many different nationalities represented, quite a few outside of Europe, given that my own background, as you heard in the introduction, is from outside of Europe originally. Maybe I'll one day be seen as more of a local. And I'm also looking forward, given the announcement of the Eden Fellows, the Senior Fellows and Fellows, and congratulations to everyone. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's meeting where we welcome the new fellows, but also plan for, well, not the next 30 years, but at least we hope to help us. I know it's a bit of a cliche now, but to build back better in the way in which we can contribute to a more fit for purpose, a more future focused education system post pandemic. So I'll stop on that note. And hopefully when I report at the end with my colleague, we'll have some very interesting observations and something quite tangible to contribute back. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Corbyn, and thank you very much, Mike. I think you've set our expectations quite high for your feedback in the final session, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'd like you to know if you live up to those expectations when we get there. So I think it's a good time to draw this to an end. As Mike said, I mean, he mentioned our first two keynotes tomorrow morning. We have the inauguration at nine and the keynotes will probably kick off about 9.30 with Francis Pedro and Daya Lurieland. So I think that's gonna be a very interesting start to the conference. I hope you thoroughly enjoy it, and I hope you enjoy also going and having a drink or two tonight in preparation for the conference. But please, whatever you do, don't send me your bar tabs. Okay, thanks very much. So that's it, have a pleasant evening. I look forward to being with you tomorrow morning. Thanks a lot. Bye now.