Stephen Downes (born April 6, 1959) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and commentator in the fields of online learning and new media. He has explored and promoted the educational use of computer and online technologies since 1995. He gave the 2004 Buntine Oration and was a presenter at the February 2007 Online Connectivism Conference. In 2008, Downes and George Siemens designed and taught an online, open course reported as a "landmark in the small but growing push toward 'open teaching - widely considered the first

massive open online course A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the World Wide Web, Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and p ...

(MOOC). Born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Downes lived and worked across Canada before joining the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; ) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research and development. It is the largest federal research and development organization in Canada. Th ...

as a senior

researcher Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

in November 2001. Currently, he is a researcher at the NRC's Digital Technologies Research Centre in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. Downes was the winner of the Edublog Award for Best Individual Blog in 2005 for his blog OLDaily. He is Editor at Large of the ''International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning''. Downes ran for Mayor of Brandon in

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

, when he was working at the Assiniboine Community College. A member of the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

, he ran on a platform to the left of incumbent mayor Rick Borotsik.Bud Robertson, "Election-Profile-Brandon", ''Winnipeg Free Press'', 1 October 1995, A1.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Downes, Stephen 1959 births Living people Canadian computer scientists Scientists from Montreal Academics from Montreal Scientists from Manitoba People from Brandon, Manitoba