Derek Rowntree has spent most of his working life in higher education. In 1969 he was appointed as one of the founding members of the Open University and played his part in developing new kinds of teaching to meet the challenges posed by the innovatory concept of 'open learning and distance education'. 30 years later, having stayed long enough to help a generation of academics learn how to teach and assess students they might never meet and, finally, to develop the first online courses, he retired as Professor of Educational Development.
