Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea BSc (Sussex), PhD (Leeds), DUniv (Heriot-Watt), DUniv (Strathclyde), LL.D hc (McGill), D.hc (St. Petersburg HSS), FAcSS, FRSE, was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh from October 2002 - February 2018.
He has worked as a researcher in the Computer Science Department of the University of Texas at Austin, the Bionics Research Lab at the University of Edinburgh and the Systems Concepts Lab, Xerox PARC, California. In 1978 he founded the Computers and Learning Research Group at the Open University and was promoted to a personal chair in Information Technology and Education in 1986. He was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Open University in 1993.
He served as the Chair of Jisc (2009-2013), as Universities Scotland’s Vice Convener (2009-2012), as Chair to the Advisory Committee for the ESRC / EPSRC's Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Research Programme (2009-2013), and as Deputy President of the French Government’s Initiatives d’ Excellence en Formations Innovantes (2011-2012).
His academic output, produced mainly in collaboration with others and on topics relating to computer based learning, artificial intelligence, and mathematics education, includes 10 books, 22 BBC television programmes and over 100 journal articles.
Access to some of his publications is available at ResearchGate.