The FLANZ Executive role
The FLANZ executive role provides direction and governance for the organisation. In addition, executive members contribute to initiatives depending to their availability and skills. Executive members are asked to attend monthly meetings (evenings) as well as one full day planning meeting (normally October). Costs are paid for attendance at the planning meeting but the time needs to be made available by the member.
The executive role is flexible, allows for engagement and activity that fits with each members situation, and offers opportunities to work with peers nationally and internationally. If you have a passion for flexible leaning and would like to be on the forefront of activity and research in open, distance and flexible learning please consider standing for a position on the committee.
2020-2021 FLANZ Committee
Ralph Springett
President
Ralph Springett is the Manager of the Assessment Centre at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.
In the past Ralph has provided services for the ITO, ITP and University sectors as well as represented distance students while studying extramurally at Massey University.
Duncan O'Hara
Vice President
Duncan is the Director, Learning and Teaching at Massey University. His interests include institutional strategy in technology enhanced/mediated learning, academic development and learning and curricula design.
Simon Atkinson
Secretary
Simon is the Manager of Learning Design at the Open Polytechnic. He has designed and taught online, blended and face-to-face courses in Education since 1999 with Victoria University of Wellington, The Open University (UK), The University of Hull, Massey University, London School of Economics and BPP University. He has held senior roles as Head of Department, Director and Associate Dean and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research publications have concentrated on educational technologies and faculty development.
Paul Stevens
Treasurer
Paul is an experienced IT Executive with a demonstrated history of working in ICT and education industries. Specialising in Open source educational projects such as Totara Learn, Mahara and Moodle, Paul has delivered some of the largest learning platforms around the globe.
Kwong-nui
Committee member
Kwong Nui is a senior lecturer/learning and teaching consultant at altLAB, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. She was an academic developer/lecturer at Centre for Academic Development, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) from 2015 till September 2020. Her research field is Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and its use in tertiary educational environments, focusing on ICT beliefs and practices (software and tools use) for students and academics, which then informs ICT use in teaching, learning and researching (TLR). The applied nature of her research aligns with her academic development role and directly informs her practices at higher education institutions. For example, the findings from her Ako Aotearoa Regional Hub Fund project in 2018 informed the need to support the use of ICT in doctoral research processes in her unit and other faculties at VUW.
Alison Fields
Committee Member
Alison is an eLearning specialist and information scientist. Her Doctorate in Education looked at the provision of learner support inside online classrooms in New Zealand and built on three decades of experience as a librarian and senior lecturer in Information and Library Studies.
Alison’s other research interests include information-seeking behaviour and online options for continuing professional development. She is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, the flagship Journal of FLANZ.
Linda Laven
Committee Member
Linda is a veterinarian by training. Linda has worked in distance education since 2009 as Academic Coordinator of the Master of Veterinary Medicine programme, Massey University. Linda’s interests lie in supporting the development of engaged, lifelong learners with a passion for their workplace.
Andrew Higgins
Committee Member
Andrew is retired but retains close links in the schooling sector. His research involved work on the provision of education to isolated students and later on in the use of technologies in education. He has been a member of various Ministerial advisory committees in New Zealand and Queensland and was formerly a university Director.
Nick Ford
Committee Member
Nick Ford manages the University of Canterbury’s e-Learning Support team. Prior to this Nick has worked as a Learning Advisor at the University of Canterbury and Ara Institute of Technology and as a secondary school Teacher (science and music).
You can contact Nick at nick.ford@canterbury.ac.nz and/or follow him on LinkedIn
Simonne Wood
Committee Member
Simonne is a Learning and Teaching Specialist at Otago Polytechnic. In addition to her main role supporting teaching staff at the Polytechnic to use educational technology, Simonne is seconded part-time to work for the OERu, a global network of institutions creating free online courses using open educational resources.
Larian Nkomo
Committee Member
Larian is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Otago. He is also an IT Technical Support Specialist for the Otago online MBA. His interests are in Higher Education, Student Engagement, Learning Analytics and Educational Technology.
Rachael Whalley
Committee Member
Rachel is ePrincipal of the Virtual Learning Network (VLN) Primary school, a collaborative schooling initiative supporting access and equity to education through online learning. She has been a student, teacher, leader, researcher, professional learning facilitator, and mentor in online, flexible and distance learning over the past two decades.
Kalina Vladinova-Aylor
Admininstration Support
Kalina is a Project Manager at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.
She is a lifelong learner with interests in economics, employment law and, most recently, in tertiary education.