Sandra Wills

Professor Sandra Wills has worked in Australian universities for thirty years, most recently as Executive Director, Learning & Teaching at University of Wollongong and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Charles Sturt University. She is now retired from full-time work.

As Pro Vice-Chancellor she was responsible for evaluating, improving and mainstreaming Charles Sturt University’s Curriculum Design Initiative; developing Charles Sturt’s eLearning Strategy; and designing The CSU Academic, our approach to academic promotion. In her retirement she continues her sector development commitments and is a Board Director of the international Open Education Foundation which founded OERu.

A self-described "digital native" since the 1970s, decades before the term was coined, she has over forty years international experience in the fields of both education and technology across the full spectrum of education including school, TAFE, business, government and university, in roles ranging from teacher, sessional lecturer, academic, courseware developer, technology entrepreneur, industry analyst, quality auditor and public speaker, to senior manager and board director in public and private educational enterprises. 

As a pioneer of multimedia, distance education and e-learning, Sandra's initiatives have been recognised through national and international awards including

• an ALTC Citation for strategic leadership in global e-learning;
• Fellow of both the Australian Computer Society and Australian Council for Computers in Education; 
• IFIP Silver Core; 
• Principal Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy;
• OLnet Fellow at the UK Open University. 

Professor Wills is an international researcher and author in educational innovation and has delivered over 120 invited and keynote addresses in 22 countries. Her latest book, The power of role-based e-learning, caps more than ten years of research on learning designs and online role play funded by Australian learning & teaching grants. Her recent grants include 

• UK Higher Education Academy - international benchmarking on recognition of teaching in academic promotion
• Office of Learning & Teaching - developing a roadmap for Open Education in Australia.