Born in the Pazar sub-province of Rize in 1965, schooled at Pazar Sivritepe Village Primary School, Pazar Secondary School and Pazar High School. Professor Şahin graduated from the Department of Geodesy and Photogrammetry (Geomatics) Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, İstanbul Technical University in 1987 at the top of his class.
Professor Şahin received his master's degree from University College London in 1991, and his PhD degree from University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1994. He started his academic career in 1988 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Surveying Techniques at Istanbul Technical University and advanced through the ranks of assistant professor and associate professor. In 2002, he became a tenured Professor in the Department of Surveying Techniques at Istanbul Technical University. He was a short-term visiting fellow at Graz Technical University in 1997 and at Berlin Technical University in 2000.During the years 1996-2004 at Istanbul Technical University, he assumed several administrative positions such as Advisor to the Rector, Director of the School of Foreign Languages, Chairman of the Department of Surveying Techniques, and Coordinator for the Graduate Program in Advanced Technologies.Professor Şahin is a member of various national and international engineering societies and he has 14 international SCI articles and 73 international papers.Professor Şahin was appointed as the Rector of Istanbul Technical University on August 6th, 2008 and his tenure ended on August 6th, 2012. In 2009, Prof. Şahin was the first and only rector from Turkey to be elected as a member of the Board of Directors of CESAER (Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research), based in Belgium and including the most prominent engineering universities in Europe. In February 2012, Professor Şahin was nominated and elected unanimously to the four-member Executive Board of CESAER on account of the contributions he had made to “Research and Strategy Management at Universities”.
Professor Şahin is a member of the Advisory Board on Earthquakes of the Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, and a member of the Board of Directors of Foundation for Citizens from Rize and Black Sea Region. Between August 2008 and August 2012, he was the Chairman of ITU Foundation and ITU Development Foundation, Chairman of ITU ARI Technocity Board of Directors, Founding Representative of ITU Development Foundation Schools and an Honorary Chairman of ITU Alumni Council.Professor Şahin is married to Neşe Şahin, a textile designer, and has two children: a son named Efe, born in 2002, and a daughter named Defne, born in 2009.
Professor Şahin is the founding rector of MEF University and has been in position since March 2013.

Oya Yerin Güneri is a professor in the Department of Educational Sciences at Middle East Technical University (METU).. She received her B.S., M.S. and PhD degrees from METU Educational Sciences Department, Guidance and Psychological Counseling Program. During her PhD in 1997, she was a visiting scholar at Minnesota University with TÜBA (Turkish Academy of Sciences) joint PhD grant.  She was also a Fogarty /NIH International Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities Program Fellow at Harvard University in summer of 2010. She was a director of METU Learning and Student Development Office between 2009-2015.  She also took leading role in the establishment of METU Center for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching in 2015. Her current research interests include counseling services in higher education, faculty professional development, career counseling and mindfulness. She is currently the Campus Vice President of the METU Northern Cyprus Campus. 

Prof. Dr. Bülent Yılmaz graduated from the Department of Librarianship, Faculty of Letters at Hacettepe University. He worked as a specialist at Gazi University Library. He got Master’s and PhD degrees at the Department of Information Management, Hacettepe University where he received the title of Assistant Professor in 1998, Associate Professor in 2000 and Professor in 2005. He conducted international projects and researches as part of National Agency and European Union. He visited various countries for the purpose of scientific events. He has organized Public Libraries Regional Seminars since 2006. He is a member of referee board of some academic journals. He was Vice President of Turkish Librarians’ Association, President of Turkish Librarians’ Association Intellectual Freedom Group, member of Turkish Librarians’ Association Professional Ethics Group, editor of Turkish Librarianship journal and assistant editor of Information World journal. He is still a lecturer and department head at the Department of Information Management, Hacettepe University. He teaches and continues his studies on the topics as communication, professional ethics, Anatolian civilizations, information society, information politics, public libraries, reading culture, digitization and organization of information. 

Dr. Kursat Cagiltay is Professor of the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. He earned his BS in Mathematics and MS in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University. He holds a double Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University, Bloomington USA.
He is the director of METU's Audio Visual Systems Research and Development Center and coordinator of the Instructional Technology Support Office.
His research focuses on, Human Computer Interaction, educational Technology, game based learning, socio-cultural aspects of technology, technology enhanced learning, Human Performance Technologies, Educational Neuroscience/Neurotechnology.

He graduated from the Department of Library Science, Faculty of Letters at Istanbul University. After working as a newspaper and magazine archivist, he worked at the Museum of Press and Library of Physics of Istanbul University, Faculty of Science. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Institute of Social Sciences, within the Department of Journalism. His master dissertation was son the discourse of newspaper caricatures and his doctoral thesis, which he completed at the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, was about the adaptation of literature works to animation. Hünerli started to work as a research assistant at the department of Radio, Television and Cinema at Faculty of Communication at Istanbul University in 1997. In 2006, he was assigned as assistant professor at the department of Communication Design at Istanbul Kültür University, Faculty of Arts and Design and he became a professor in 2012. He has been working as the head of Computer and Instructional Technologies Department of Istanbul University, Faculty of education since 2014. Hünerli researches and instructs on animation, caricature, graphic design, communication and semiotics.

Süleyman Sadi SEFEROGLU is professor of instructional technology at the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology of Faculty of Education at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. During his undergraduate he received degrees in Radio-TV and Educational Sciences, in Ankara, Turkey. He completed his graduate studies at Columbia University in New York where he received masters degrees in 1989, and 1993, and doctoral degree in 1996.

Dr. Seferoglu authored a book titled “Instructional Technology and Material Design”, and co-authored several books on the use of technology in education. Use of technology in education, distance education, e-learning, m-learning, technology policies, instructional material design-development, teacher education, professional development, pre-service and in-service teacher training, digital gap, cyberbullying, Internet threats, Internet addiction, social media, child abuse, children and media are his professional interests.

S. Sadi SEFEROGLU's home page: http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~sadi/sadi_english.html

Murat Sözer

Director, Koç University Office of Learning and Teaching (KOLT), Istanbul, Turkey

Associate Professor, Koç University, College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Dept., Istanbul, Turkey

He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at METU in 1986 and 1989, respectively; and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at University of Delaware in 1995.

His research areas include modeling and control of composite materials manufacturing processes such as resin transfer molding and vacuum assisted resin infusion; material characterization experiments (permeability and compaction); fluid mechanics; and porous media flows. Professor Sozer has published more than 40 articles in the leading journals and conference proceedings, and co-authored one book and three chapters on process modeling in composites manufacturing.

He is the director of Koç University Office of Learning and Teaching (KOLT) since September 2012. KOLT has the following services to students, teaching assistants and faculty: peer-supported tutoring service; basic academic skills seminars for new-coming students; conversation circles for fluency in speaking English, training workshops for teaching assistants; curriculum development; teaching workshops for faculty; mid-semester course evaluations; promoting active learning (such as team-based learning and flipped classroom) and blended learning through learning management systems (MOODLE and Blackboard); supporting faculty to prepare new MOOC (Coursera) courses.

He is the recipient of “Outstanding Teaching Award” (Koç University wide) given by the President of Koç University, Prof. Umran Inan in 2011-2012 academic year when it was organized for the first time in the university history.

Cable works with the global open education community to leverage open licensing, open content, and open policies to significantly improve access to quality, affordable, education and research resources so everyone in the world can attain their education goals. He’s a leading advocate for open licensing policies that ensure publicly funded education materials are freely and openly available.Cable helps lead the global open education movement and is the Director of Open Education at Creative Commons (CC) - a nonprofit organization at the center of an international movement to promote sharing of creativity and knowledge. CC provides the well-known suite of open licenses that have become the global standard used by governments, institutions and individuals across culture, education, and science, to promote sharing, collaboration and innovation. The CC licenses are everywhere—1.3+ billion are in use across 9 million websites—making it easy for anyone to freely access and use open educational resources. Cable has 20 years of academic technology, online learning, and open education experience and helped establish the Open Course Library. Cable holds a PhD in educational psychology from Ohio State University, and enjoys motorcycling and playing in the mountains with his family. He lives in Olympia with his wife and two boys.

Huriye Arıkan studied mathematics at Boğaziçi University, İstanbul and received her BS in 1979. She earned her MS and PhD degrees in Mathematics from Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Between 1980 and 1999, she worked at Middle East Technical University, Mathematics Department. She held visiting professorship positions from 1989 till 1998, at Purdue University, Harvard University (Summer Programs - The Kennedy School of Government) and University of New Hampshire in USA and at University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Since 1980, she has been a Member of the Turkish Mathematical Society for which she held the status of the General Secretary from 2007 to 2009. She is a member of the Board of Directors and the Board of Trustees of “The Human Resource Development Foundation (IKGV)”. Currently she is the National Representative of Turkey at International Commission of Mathematics Instruction (ICMI) of the International Mathematical Union (IMU). She founded the Academic Support Program at Sabancı University in 1999. She teaches at Sabancı University and has been the Coordinator of Academic Support Program since then.

Fields of specialization: Functional Analysis, Operator Theory and Banach Algebra, Mathematics Education and Didactics.

Afif Rustom is a Senior Business Development Manager at VitalSource handling Europe and Middle East, working closely with local partners, institutions, publishers, & ministries of education to support the digital educational transformation with 21st century tools and technology.

Ayhan Kaygusuz has been library director of Istanbul Şehir University since 2010. He worked as library director of Istanbul Technical University for 13 years and Abant Izzet Baysal University for one year. Before that he worked for public library authority under the Ministry of Culture and run ISBN Agency and ISSN Center. Between 2000 and 2007 he was steering committe member and then president of ANKOS (Anatolian University Libraries Consortium).  He is interested in information literacy, open access and institutional repositories. He has been actively working on these subject areas with a group of library directors in Turkey.

Bret has more than 20 years’ experience in content lifecycle operations, consulting, and structured authoring implementations, with expertise in the areas of scholarly publishing, enterprise content management, unstructured to structured content and workflow migration, technical publishing, multilingual information management, collaboration, knowledge management, and complex workflow design.

Bret has led some of the world’s largest organisations in developing and implementing publishing and information management strategies. He was instrumental in the early days of XML authoring and publishing and has helped many large organisations develop complex multi channel output methods.  Bret has written for many trade publications and speaks frequently on a variety of topics in the United States and Europe for such organizations and events as STM, London Book fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, local and national Society for Technical Communicators (STC) groups, Society of Scholarly publishing, Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA), Gilbane, and many others.

In his spare time, Bret is a member of Toastmaster international, an after dinner speaker, certified in NLP, coaching, and hypnotherapy and is one of Europes’ leading MMA and Boxing Ring Announcers.

Cem Özel was born in İstanbul in 1979. He received his BA in Library Science from the Faculty of Letters at Istanbul University in 2000. He received his master degree in "Internet Based Distance Education and University Libraries in Turkey" from Social Sciences Institute of Istanbul University in 2004. He worked for Istanbul Bilgi University Library between 2000-2006. He had been working at Sabancı University Information Center as an information services specialist until 2013.  He was appointed to User Services Manager at Sabancı University Information Center on 1 May 2013. 

He is  a member of Turkish Librarians’ Association and  University and Research Librarians’ Association. He is also social media editor, a member of editorial board and a member of peer review board of “Turkish Librarianship” journal.

Neil Broomfield is Channel Marketing Director (EMEA) for Wiley. He manages promotions of Wiley’s products and services to a number of channels, with a special focus on making Wiley’s textbook content available through a broad variety of channels and delivering teaching and learning solutions that improve educational outcomes in the Higher Education market.

With a background in information systems and web development/programming. Pete provides strategic direction on the use of TEL within the School of Life Sciences. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Information Systems, a Masters Degree in Web Computing, and a Post Graduate Certificate  in Teaching and Learning Support for Higher Education. He is currently writing up his PhD thesis, which is focusing on the role of electronic assessment in Higher Education, and the implications for policy and practice.

He teaches at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, with the majority of this teaching centred on leading a first year quantitative skills course for biologists, but also delivers sessions on developing student digital capabilities. His research interests are in technology enhanced learning, specifically electronic assessment; MOOC pedagogy and practive; Higher Education policy and practice; the student transition to Higher Education and treshold concepts in Web development.

Sarper Arıkan was born in Sivas, Turkey in 1984. He currently works as Visually Impaired Services Librarian at Akdeniz University Library. He received his bachelor degrees from Akdeniz University in Public Administration and Anadolu University in Social services.
Within the scope of the electronic library project for blind and visually impaired students at the Akdeniz University Library, he undertakes projects in order to provide screen reader training for visually impaired students and establish a distance education platform.
Sarper Arıkan has two books titled "Görme Engelli Destek Teknolojileri Rehberi" and "Görme Engelli Destek Teknolojileri, Engelsiz Teknolojiye Dokunuş " published in 2012 and 2013. And, he also has two awards in the field of education and web applications dated 2013 and 2014.
He is presently in charge of project implementation of the support platform for assistive technology of Universities without disabilities since 2015

Batu has a broad range of experience on data protection and telecommunications law and is valued by clients for his technical knowledge and dedication.
Batu is a senior counsel and attorney-at-law at BTS&Partners.
He advises clients on a wide range of issues, including data protection, information privacy, cybersecurity, e-commerce and telecommunications law. His expertize also includes copyright and open source software licensing.

Batu has a diverse client base that includes domestic and international software, telecommunications, e-commerce companies and payment service providers as well as leading NGOs in the technology sector. He directs various regulatory compliance projects. Batu also advises clients on public procurement projects relating to information and communication technologies.

Batu has articles published in international refereed academic journals on subjects ranging from copyright to internet regulation.
Batu is a graduate of Robert College and Istanbul University Law Faculty. He holds an LL.M. degree in Innovation, Technology and the Law from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Batu works in Turkish and English.