Morten Flate Paulsen
A prolific scholar, Morten Flate Paulsen is a pioneer in open and online education. He established NooA, the Nordic open online Academy, in 2012, where he is CEO and professor of online education. Among his many other achievements over the course of his career, he initiated NKI Online College, the first online college in Europe. Paulsen is revered worldwide for these accomplishments in providing education for all, as well as for his technology developments and numerous publications and presentations on online education and the technology to support it.
As part of NKI Online College, the largest provider of online courses in Scandinavia, Paulsen made some of his most innovative contributions to the field of adult education and lifelong learning. He worked at NKI from 1982 through 2012, with two years off for doctoral studies, ending as director of development. At NKI in the 1980s, he designed the EKKO computer conferencing and learning management system software tools that made distance teaching and learning possible. In 1987, he introduced NKI Online College and taught the first online course at a distance. The college is one of the longest running online colleges in the world.
At the time of NKI Online College’s founding, the Internet was in its infancy. The idea of a teaching institution that would provide access to upper, secondary, and higher education to anyone equipped with a modem was visionary. Today, the institution serves as a reference for researchers and practitioners interested in online upper secondary school, postgraduate studies, and university college studies.
Paulsen’s other positions have included working as acting secretary general for ICDE—the International Council for Open and Distance Education (2018–2019)—and as part-time professor of online education at universities in Canda, Portugal, and Norway. He has served as president of EDEN—the European Distance and E-Learning Network (2010–2013)—and on EADL, the European Association for Distance Learning research and development committee (2005–2007).
As an academic, Paulsen has published widely on online and lifelong learning, with a particular focus on technology-supported innovations and his Theory of Cooperative Freedom and Transparency in Online Education. He has also given more than 150 keynotes and other presentations at conferences in 30 countries. Paulsen’s publications include numerous papers and more than twenty edited volumes and reports. His most recent books address the use of digital technologies to supply open-access education for all. He began releasing the first installments of his four-volume, open-access work My Online Education World, 1980–2020 in 2024.
Paulsen established the Distance Education Online Symposium in 1990 when working with the American Center for the Study of Distance Education at Pennsylvania State University. He served as the founding editor of DEOSNEWS and the first moderator of DEOS-L. He has been regional editor for IRRODL (the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning) and EURODL (the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning). Paulsen has also served on the Editorial Board of the Asian Journal of Distance Education and seminar.net.
Paulsen holds a doctorate in education from Pennsylvania State University in adult education and instructional systems.