Professor of Education. National coordinator for graduate schools GRADE, UPGRADE, and LIKED. Guest professor at the University of Gothenburg.
Anders D. Olofsson (also known as ADO) currently holds a position as a full professor, PhD, at the Department of Education, Umeå University in Sweden and a position as a guest professor in Informatics at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Between 2011 and 2012, Olofsson held a position as a guest researcher at the University West, Sweden, with responsible for building up the PhD-programme (in Education). For several years he served as the Director of Research Studies at the Department of Education as well as held a position as a teacher and researcher at the Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Umeå University. At the Medical School he was involved in several development and research projects focused on the design of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and educational technology for learning in medical education. For 8 years Olofsson was the scientific leader for the research group Learning & ICT (LICT). Between the years of 2018-2022 Olofsson held a position as a full professor of Educational work at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University.
Olofsson's doctoral thesis "Training Teachers Through Technology" from 2005 was about becoming a teacher through net based teacher training and over the years much of his research has been aimed at understanding the meaning of social processes of teaching, learning and assessment in higher educational contexts that in different ways are embraced by TEL and educational technology. This including a special research interest in Online Learning Communities and especially in relation to teachers´ professional development (TPD).Olofsson has over the years contributed with books, book-chapters, peer-review journal articles and papers to conference proceedings on these specific topics. Since 2015 he was the scientific leader for the research project 'Making IT happen - A study of the advanced use of digital technologies in Swedish upper secondary schools'. This project was financed by the Swedish Research Council and ran until November 2021. Among other things the project delivered 14 peer reviewed articles. During the last years, Olofsson has mainly worked with various questions regarding the digitalization of teacher education as well as teacher educators' and student teachers' professional digital competence (PDC).
Olofsson is part of the Editorial board for the international journal Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy. Moreover, Olofsson has been named "Friend of the Conference" in relation to the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Education (ICICTE). Together with Associate professor and Professor J. Ola Lindberg, he has co-edited the book Digitalization and Digital Competence in Educational Contexts. A Nordic Perspective from Policy to Practice published by Routledge in 2024. During 2011 and 2012 Olofsson co-edited the other two books together with Professor Lindberg. Both books published by IGI Global. The first one is labelled: Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development. Methods for Improved Educational Delivery and the second one is labelled: Informed Design of Educational Technologies in Higher Education: Enhanced Learning and Teaching.
Olofsson is the national project leader and coordinator for the GRADEresearch consortium consisting of three Swedish interdisciplinary national graduate school for digital technologies in education (GRADE, UPGRADE, and LIKED) financed by the Swedish Research Council. Moreover, Olofsson has been the head supervisor for Dr. Fanny Pettersson, (successful defence in 2015), Dr. Marcia Lindqvist (successful defence in 2015) and Dr. Claire Englund (successful defence in 2018). He was co-supervisor for Dr. Monica Liljeström (successful defence in 2010). For the moment Olofsson is the head supervisor for PhD-candidate Ulrika Gustafsson, PhD-candidate Alex Örtegren, PhD-candidate Sophia Rudeberg as well as co-supervisor for PhD-candidate Andreas Olsson. For 12 years Olofsson served as an external board member for the excellence research environment called Learning In and For the New Working Life (LINA), at University West, Sweden. Olofsson does reviews for the international research journals Education and Information Technologies; British Journal of Educational Technology; Technology, Pedagogy and Education; and International Journal of Information and Learning Technology.
