I chose Randy Garrison because he’s a pioneer in the field. Garrison is now professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and was director of university’s Teaching and Learning Centre. Beginning nearly 30 years ago, when the Internet was merely in its infancy, Garrison, was already creating a framework for online and blended education (UToday, 2009). Garrison is the author of many books, articles and papers, having published extensively on distance education (Parry, 2010). His recent books are: E-Learning in the 21st Century: A Community of Inquiry Framework for Research and Practice (3rd Edition) (2017). Thinking Collaboratively: Learning in a Community of Inquiry (2016); Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry (2013); Educational Communities of Inquiry: Theoretical Framework, Research and Practice (2013); E-Learning in the 21st century (2nd Ed.) (2011); An Introduction to Distance Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning in a New Era (2010); and Blended Learning in Higher Education (2008). His current research focus is on the Communities of Inquiry (CoI) theoretical framework, which has been the leading theory guiding research and practice in the field (UToday, 2009). As discovered by Bozkurt et al. (2015), Garrison was the most cited author in journals of the field of distance education research, between 2009 and 2013 (Bozkurt et al., 2015, p. 353). In 2009, Garrison received the award for most outstanding achievement in online learning by an individual at the Sloan-C Annual International Conference in Orlando, Florida.
References
The Community of Inquiry (n.d.). Dr. D. Randy Garrison.
UToday (2009, 9 October). Online learning pioneer honoured.
Werklund School of Education (n.d.) D. Randy Garrison.
Bozkurt, A., Ozbek, E. A., Yilmazel, S., Erdogdu, E., Ucar, H., & Guler, E. (2015). February – 2015 Trends in Distance Education Research : A Content Analysis of Journals 2009 2013. The International Review of Research in Open and Distrubted Learning, 16(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i1.1953