Alan Tait is Emeritus Professor of Distance Education and Development and former Pro Vice-chancellor at the Open University UK, and Fellow at the Centre for Distance Education, University of London. He was Editor of the European Journal of Distance and E Learning (EURODL) 2005-2013; Editor of the journal Open Learning from 1989-1998; President of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) from 2007-2010, and Co-Director of the Cambridge International Conference on Open and Distance Learning 1988-2013. In 2012 Alan was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Moscow State University for Economics, Statistics and Informatics, and appointed Visiting Senior Online Consultant at the Open University of China in 2013. Alan is founding Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Learning for Development, produced from the Commonwealth of Learning; Visiting Professor, Amity University, India 2018-19; Distinguished Visiting Professor  at Open University of Hong Kong 2015-2018; Visiting Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark 2012-2016; senior member of St Edmunds College, University of Cambridge, and transformation advisor for the Commonwealth of Learning at Botswana Open University 2011-2016. Alan was Special Advisor to the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) 2018-2019. Alan is Chair of Trustees at Mind for Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire.