Jako Olivier

I am currently an Adviser: Higher Education at the Commonwealth of Learning in Vancouver, Canada, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. Before this, I established and led the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and Open Educational Resources, and was a Professor at North-West University, South Africa (where I initially worked in language teacher training and later in OER research and advocacy). After some years teaching languages and information technology at secondary school level in South Africa and the UK, I joined the North-West University as a lecturer in September 2010. I currently serve on the advisory board of the Open Education for a Better World initiative and have acted as a mentor from 2021 to 2023 and again in 2025. My research interests include: open educational resources, open pedagogy, renewable and authentic assessments, micro-credentials, open and distance learning, self-directed learning, multimodal learning, blended learning, e-learning in language classrooms and online multilingualism.