Ormond Simpson is a consultant in distance and online education, most recently at the London University International Programmes where he was a Visiting Fellow. His most recent post before that was at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand where he was Visiting Professor. Prior to that he was Senior Lecturer in Institutional Research and Director of the Centre for Educational Guidance and Student Support at the UK Open University.
He has given keynote presentations and workshops in Sri Lanka, Chile, Mexico, South Africa, Ghana, China, the West Indies, Colombia, Brazil, South Korea, The Gambia, Holland and Papua New Guinea.
His distance education interests are in student support and retention, cost-benefits of student retention activities, ethical issues, learning motivation, e-learning and staff development. He has written several books, the latest of which ‘Supporting Students for Success in Online and Distance Education’ (2012, Routledge) has just been translated into Chinese. He has also written ten book chapters and more than thirty journal articles, the most recent of which is “Challenging the ‘distance education deficit’ through ‘motivational emails’” Open Learning 2015: 30, (2) (with Inkelaar, T.)
He has a website www.ormondsimpson.com where there are freely downloadable presentations, articles and other materials for distance researchers, tutors and students.