Robert Schuwer (1955) received an MSc in Mathematics at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (1980) and an MSc Computer Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology (1989). On the latter university he did his PhD in 1993 on a thesis about knowledge base systems. Robert’s working experience includes teaching mathematics in secondary education, consultancy for ICT related issues, assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (department Management Science) and CTO in a software company.
Currently, he is associate professor at the Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL). Since 2006 the majority of his work is about OER. He was appointed project leader for the OpenER-project at the OUNL in 2006, which was the first OER project in The Netherlands. Currently, he is involved as projectleader in the Wikiwijs program, aiming at creating a national infrastructure for OER, initiated by the Dutch Ministry of Education. Other current activities around OER includes a research about business models in OER and involvement in a project aiming at realization of a networked Polytechnic for Computer Science, using OER as learning materials. He is chairman of the Special Interest Group OER for Higher Education, established by SURF and chairman of the Nominating Committee of the Open Courseware Consortium.