Desmond Keegan

Desmond Keegan could be called one of the early founders of Distance Education especially in relation to regular study. His initial Theory of Distance Education published in 1986 focused on teaching acts in time and place as separate from learning acts. He advocated for universities and companies to allow for distance education as a valid form of education. 

He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide in 1986 with a focus on distance education.

He held positions with distance training in Australia as well as Director-General of the Italian Distance University Consortium. Lastly, he was Routledge's editor on Studies of Distance Education. 

He is most often cited in the following works: 

Keegan, D. (1996). Foundations of distance education. Psychology Press

Keegan, D. (1980). On defining distance education. Distance Education 1 (1), 13-36. 

Keegan, D. (2002). The future of learning: From eLearning to mlearning. FernUniersitat