Richard Wallis, distinguished thought leader in Semantic Web and Linked Data, joined OCLC in 2012 as Technology Evangelist to focus and share Linked Data developments. He has been at the forefront of the emergence of these technologies in the information world for over 20 years.

He is Chair of the W3C Schema Bib Extend Community Group and evangelist for the adoption of Linked Data in libraries and wider Web. He has an international reputation for insightful and entertaining keynote sessions at library, Web, and Semantic Web focused events. He is a pragmatist who believes in searching for implementable solutions.

Kornelia Tancheva is the Associate University Librarian for Research and Learning Services at Cornell University Library in Ithaca, NY, USA. She is also the selector for Linguistics and the library liaison to the Department of Linguistics. Kornelia holds a Ph.D. in American Drama from Cornell University and an M.L.S. from the School of Information Science in Syracuse. She has published and presented extensively on topics as diverse as academic research libraries, ethnographic user research, participatory design, drama, and theatre. As the AUL for Research and Learning Services, she focuses on innovative ways for academic research libraries to engage in the research, learning, and teaching process in the academy and the impact of library interventions.

Assistant Prof. Uğur ÜNAL Uğur Ünal, born in Ankara on 27th November in 1975, graduated from Gazi University Faculty of Education with an undergraduate degree in History Teaching. His master’s thesis is titled “Reform Efforts during the Age of Selim III (Nizam-i –Jad.id). He received his doctoral degree in 2006 with his thesis titled “Ottoman Army at the Age of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–1876)”.

He worked as a research assistant from 1999 to 2006, as an instructor from 2006 to 2009, as an assistant professor from 2009 to2010, and as an associate professor from 2010 to 2012 at Gazi University Faculty of Education. He thought courses on “History of Turkish Modernization”, “Ottoman Paleography”, “Ottoman Diplomacy”, History of Turkish Education” and “Foreign Policy of Ottoman Empire” at undergraduate and graduate level.

Ünal who is working on the Contemporary Ottoman History has ten books, a lot of academic articles and proceedings on military system, educational institutions and modernization period of Ottoman Empire.

Ünal has been serving as Director General to the State Achieves since January 2012.

He speaks English. He is married and has three children.

Asst. Prof. Ahmet Ercan Topcu, born in 1973 has completed his primary and secondary education in Mersin. He received his undergraguate degree from the Electrical Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1997. After he got his master's degree in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, he completed his PhD in Computer Science at Indiana University.

Since 1997, Asst. Prof. Topcu had worked as researcher, software engineer and manager in many projects.

After his graduation in 1997 from METU, he worked as an engineer at Sasel Electrical and Electronics for about two years. He worked as a research assistant in Grid Computing project during his PhD in Pervasive Technology Laboratory at Indiana University. After completion of his PhD, he worked as an IT consultant at the Center for Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University.

Asst. Prof. Topcu, who returned to Turkey in 2010, has been appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Yildirim Beyazit University Department of Computer Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences.

He worked as the IT Coordinator in Information Security and Management Department of OSYM and as a manager in the reconstruction of the OSYM computing infrastructure, the measurement and assessment software, question pool and electronic test software from January 2011 to June 2013. Asst. Prof. Ahmet Ercan Topcu has been serving as the Head of the Information Technology Department at the Ministry of Science, Industry and technology since May 2014.

M. Mirat Satoğlu has been working as the Director of the National Academic Network and Information Center ULAKBİM) in the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK).

He has worked in various international companies as an IT specialist previously.

M. Mirat Satoğlu has completed his undergraduate studies in the Department of Computer Engineering in Bilkent, and has got his graduate degree from Ege University and University of Pennsylvania.

Jale AKBAŞ born in 1970 in Istanbul was graduated from Hacettepe University, Faculty of Letters, American Culture and Literature Department. She started her career as an English Teacher at Ministry of National Education and continued as Senior Translator within the scope of European Union Projects. She was assigned to SENnet Project Coordinator and eTwinning Project Specialist in EU and Projects Department and R&D Strategic Planning Department in Directorate General of Educational Technologies, Ministry of National Education. Now, she is working as Europe School Network & Projects Coordinator and EBA English Responsible at related directorate general. Also, she took part in many international events and contributed to scientific studies within the context of European Union Projects besides her professional translation service in both government and private sector.

Jale AKBAŞ who took part in promotional activities in EU countries (Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Portugal) and Far East (China) countries within FATIH Project national and international introduction, is carrying responsibility of international works of a 16-million budgeted project accepted by European Union Commission on the purpose of enrichment FATIH project within IPA.

Kamil Mehmet Özkan, born in 1986 in Bursa completed his primary and secondary education in Bursa. After graduating from Bursa Anatolian High School, he gained his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Istanbul Ticaret University. He had his master’s degree from Kadir Has University Social Sciences Institute on New Media. With the support of the industry's leading companies and Turkcell, he presented his thesis on tablet device usage, publishing and new advertising models as a first in its genre. During this graduate program, he conducted different studies about new media and major transformations it causes, he prepared reports on these topics.

Currently, Kamil Mehmet Özkan works toward a PhD at Public Relations and Advertising Department of the Istanbul Aydın University.

As of March 2013, Kamil Mehmet Özkan began to serve as the Coordinator of Digital Publications at Turkish Airlines. He coordinated Skylife’s transformation into digital media which is the biggest magazine in Turkey and many digital publishing projects such as Sky Library Project, THY Publications Project and Virtual Museum.

Currently, he continues to develop innovative projects on digital media at Turkish Airlines. He works as consultant on the transformation (communication, sales, strategy development, big data) of communication and sales channels of the contemporary sectors and brands.

Mehmet Kamil ÖZKAN continues to publish articles on economics and management journals such as HBR Turkey blogs, Müsiad Çerçeve Magazine. Also he writes on the Not Defteri blog site about travelling, gourmet and lifestyle advices.

Having taken early retirement from Bournemouth University after 18 years as University Librarian, David now works as an independent consultant, researcher and interim manager, specialising in aspects of higher education, particularly scholarly communication, e-books and e-journals, procurement, library and related systems, virtual learning environments.

He has undertaken a wide range of projects, many focused on Open Access publishing, for diverse clients, including: Public Library of Science (PLoS), the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, City University London, UKeiG, Jisc Collections, UCL, SPARC Europe, Public Health England, OAPEN, Enabling Open Scholarship (EOS). Current work includes the PASTEUR4OA and FOSTER projects.

David has also worked with Sero HE (http://www.serohe.co.uk/) on a range of projects in education and digital technology.

Professor Tonta is with the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. His areas of teaching and research are information retrieval, information architecture, information systems design, networked information services, electronic publishing, open access and bibliometrics.

In the past Professor Tonta served as the founding director of the National Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBIM) of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), the Chair of the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University, the Chair-elect of the Information Management Committee (IMC) of NATO’s Research & Technology Organization (RTO) and Director of its Lecture Series on Electronic Information Management.

He has been involved in the open access projects supported by the European Commission (most recently, MedOANet and PASTEUR4OA) and TUBITAK. His works appeared in a number of professional journals including JASIST and Journal of Informetrics.

Professor Tonta is the recipient of Hacettepe University’s Science Award (2010). He is currently the Deputy Chair of UNESCO Turkey’s Memory of the World Committee. Professor Tonta is a member of several professional organizations including the Association of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) and served in the Organizing and Programme Committees of several international conferences including IMCW, ICKM, ISSI, and ELPUB.

Professor Tonta received his graduate degrees in library and information studies from the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D.), the University of Wales (M.Lib.), and Hacettepe University (M.A.).

More information about Professor Tonta and his contributions is available through his web site (http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/tonta.html).

Mr. Gultekin GÜRDAL was graduated from Hacettepe University Library Science Program (currently the Information Management Program) in 1990 and completed his MBA degree from Kocaeli University.

Mr. GÜRDAL has been continuing to be the Library Director at Izmir Institute of Technology (IYTE) since 2005. He has previously held positions at Bilkent University, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Sabanci University and TOBB University. Mr. GÜRDAL served as the Chairman of the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS) between the years 2008 and 2012. Currently, he serves as the Coordinator of the ANKOS Open Access and Institutional Repositories Working Group. He has been involved in the open access projects supported by the European Commission (most recently, OpenAIRE+ and OpenAIRE2020). At the same time, he has been elected one of the member of "Open Access and Institutional Repositories Working Group" which was founded by Chairman of the Board of Higher Education and he is working for the “National Academic Archive” project. He is working to raise awareness about Open Access in Turkey.

Mr. GÜRDAL keeps active membership with the following organizations; Turkish Librarians' Association (TKD), University and Research Librarians Association (UNAK), Anatolian University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS), Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), The European Organisation for International Research Information (EuroCRIS), International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL). He also serves on the advisory boards of a number of publishers and the firm such as Elsevier, Springer, Proquest, Sage and EBSCO, etc…

Mr. GÜRDAL has many national and international publications. He is a close follower and practitioner of all kinds of scientific and technological development in the field of librarianship/information science.

Burcu Bulut received her PhD in Library and Information Science from Ankara University in 2011. Bulut worked as technical services librarian, reference and e-resources librarian at different universities, also had an experience at Swets Information Services as eletronic product manager.

She joined Ipek University in 2013 as library director. She also have had several responsibilities in ANKOS (Anatolia University Libraries Consortium) as member of User/Training Librarian Group, Negotiating Group on Databases and currently she is member of the Open Access and Institutional Repositories Wroking Group and database liasison of one database.

She has been acted as a board member of TLA between 2004-2006, 2012-2014 and also one of the founder member of TLA’s Public Relations Group. Bulut has been playing an active role to promote OA and IRs as a group member of Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe (OpenAIRE) Project.

Her areas of expertise include digital libraries, e-resources management, open access, institutional repositories, information retrieval systems and informaton seeking behaviours.

You can reach her from tr.linkedin.com/in/burcubulut/

Orçun Madran, received his undergraduate degree in Information Management in 1999 and MA in Management Information Sciences in 2005.

He is currently working as an academic staff at the Department of Information Management at Hacettepe University. He is also teaching e-learning and instructional technology related courses both at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

He is still working on a thesis about Educational Technology. His main research areas include distance education, e-learning and mobile information systems.

More info: www.madran.net

Mehmet Üneş was born in 1979 in Amasya.

He graduated from Middle Eastern Technical University in 2006 with an undergraduate degree in history and with a master’s degree in history from Hacettepe University in 2012.

Mehmet Üneş has been a Board Member at CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STRATEGIC STUDIES (ORSAM) since 2011. He also serves as Assistant Coordinator at the Disability Support Unit, Kastamonu University.

Mehmet Üneş has been continuing to support Beira Interior Covilha University where they are building a Disability Support Unit since 2011.

Mehmet Üneş works as e-Resources Librarian at Kastamonu University Library starting from 2009.

He speaks advanced English and good French.