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Prof. Dr. Petek AŞKAR
ITTES 2021 Keynote Speaker
She was born in 1957 in Ankara. She completed her primary and secondary education at TED Ankara College, and her undergraduate education in Mathematics (major) and Physics (minor) Teaching at METU Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of Education. She received his science expertise and doctorate degrees in the field of Educational Measurement and Evaluation at Hacettepe University. She started to work as an assistant at METU Education Department in 1979. Between 1983-1985, she worked as a test specialist at the Measurement, Selection and Placement Center. She became an Assistant Professor at METU in 1985, and then an Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at the Department of Educational Sciences, Measurement and Evaluation in Education, and Science Education Department. Between 1989 and 1990, she worked as a research coordinator at the IBM Computer Aided Education Center. Between 1992-1995, she founded and ran the Department of Information Technologies in Education at the General Directorate of Computer Education and Services at the Ministry of National Education. She became a professor at METU in 1995. She prioritized the establishment of the Department of Computer Education at METU. She transferred to Hacettepe University Computer and Instructional Technologies Education Department in 1999 and served as the Head of the Department until 2010. Between 2010-2011, she served as the Head of the Department of Sociology at Izmir University of Economics. Between 2011 and 2014, she worked as the founding Dean of the Faculty of Education at TED University. She served as a member of the Social and Human Sciences Research Support Board affiliated to the TÜBİTAK Research Support Programs Presidency between 2015-2017 and as a Group Executive Board Member between 2017-2018. In 2018, she worked as a member of the OSYM Advisory Board. She has been on the Advisory Board for the MEB Education Analysis and Evaluation Reports series since 2019. Prof. Dr. Petek Aşkar worked as a consultant on various projects at the Ministry of National Education, ÖSYM, European Union, UNICEF and the World Bank; She carried out TÜBİTAK and EU Leonardo da Vinci projects. She takes part in the Scientific Committee and Organizing Committees of various symposiums and congresses at home and abroad, and serves as a referee and editor in journals in her field. Her publications focus on e-learning, diffusion and innovation, cognitive processes, mathematics education, and measurement and evaluation. She has many articles and papers published in the country and abroad. She was appointed as the Deputy Minister of National Education with the Appointment Decision numbered 2021/397 published in the Official Gazette dated 6 August 2021 and numbered 31560. She is married and has two children.

Dr. Xiangyang Zhang
To Change or to be Changed, That Is the Question for Higher Education in Digital Era
Prof. Xiangyang Zhang, EdD, at present acts as Joint Director of Institute for Open Education, after 36 years of involvement in distance and open education and then e-learning in Open University of Jiangsu. He has actively participated the international ODeL community activities, working as reviewer for some scholarly journals on open and distance and distributive learning, publishing scholarly papers internationally and domestically, keynote speaking and presenting at international conferences. In 2017-2020, he works as Global Ambassador for OER Advocacy and a member of OER Advocacy Committee, International Council for Open and Distance Education.
He has been a visiting fellow at University of Nottingham, UK, and paid frequently short academic visits to universities in UK, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He was adjunct faculty at Jiangsu Normal University, Nanjing Normal University and the guest professor at Yuda University of Technology in Taiwan.
His expertise divides into two strands: Open and distance education, and Language education. Apart from academic publications, Prof. Zhang works as consultant for pedagogy, educational technology and online course design for open and distance teaching institutions in China.