Reeves, T. C. (2005). Tribute to Betty Collis. In M. Orey, J. McClendon, & R. M. Branch (Eds.), Educational Media and Technology Yearbook 2005. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited
Tribute to Betty Collis
Shell Professor of Networked Learning
University of Twente
by
Thomas C. Reeves
Professor of Instructional Technology
The University of Georgia
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Sir Isaac Newton
If asked to use only three words to describe Professor Betty Collis, my choices would be “Pioneer,” “International,” and “Partner.” As a Pioneer, Betty began using computers in education a quarter century ago at the dawn of the microcomputer age, and five years later, she was one of the first people anywhere to utilize early versions of the Internet for teaching and learning. She has been on the cutting edge of new telecommunications and educational technology research and development ever since, as a visit to her impressive Web site ( will reveal to anyone unfamiliar with her numerous contributions to the field of educational communications and technology.
With respect to International, there are very few scholars in our field who are more widely known around the globe than Betty Collis. Part of her strong international reputation derives from the 500 presentations she has given at various professional conferences, with nearly 50 of those being invited keynotes. Perhaps more of her renown derives from the nearly 600 scholarly publications she has to her credit, including a dozen books, 50 plus book chapters, and more than 120 refereed journal articles. In addition to spending significant parts of her education and professional career in the USA, Canada, and The Netherlands, Betty has visited more than 30 countries as a consultant, speaker, researcher, and teacher. Holding dual American and Canadian citizenship and maintaining residences in The Netherlands and the USA, she is a true global citizen.
Finally, as a Partner, Betty exemplifies authentic collaboration. Although many in the fields of educational media, telecommunications, and technology have benefited from working with Betty, her professional and personal soul mate is Jef Moonen, who recently retired as a Professor and former Dean at the University of Twente. Their collaboration is actually detailed in a recent article published in the Educational Technology Research and Development journal that provides fascinating details of what they describe as their “Core Connections” (Moonen & Collis, 2003). It is a unique and special partnership that began as a professional one in 1987 and rapidly blossomed into a relationship and marriage that someday deserves to be made into a grand romantic film akin to Out of Africa or The English Patient.
But of course, I am allowed more than 3 words in this chapter; indeed the editor as allocated 1,200. It is hardly enough, but let me start again at the beginning. Born in 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, Betty Collis spent her childhood there before going off to college to earn an honors degree in Mathematics (Magna Cum Laude) at the University of Michigan. Subsequently, she earned a Masters degree with honors in Mathematics Education at Stanford University, one of the top ten universities in the USA. Interestingly, her Masters Thesis was funded by Shell via Paul deHart Hurt Award for Mathematics. Little did Shell know that it was helping to prepare its future Shell Professor of Networked Learning!
Betty began her professional career teaching mathematics as a high school teacher, a challenging roles she undertook in California and British Columbia from 1967 to 1974. In 1974, she shifted from teaching high school students to teaching future teachers at the University of Victoria while also pursuing a Ph.D. focused on the Measurement and Evaluation of Computer Applications in Education. When she completed her doctorate in 1983, it was surely one of the first of its kind. After earning her Ph.D., once again with honors, she remained a member of the faculty at Victoria for five more years before joining the faculty of Faculty of Educational Science and Technology at the University of Twente in 1988. (In 2002, this Faculty changed its name to Behavioural Sciences.) Today the University of Twente enjoys a strong reputation as one of the foremost institutions of higher learning in the areas of educational telecommunications and technology, in no small part thanks to the leadership of Betty Collis and Jef Moonen.
Today, Betty keeps one foot in academe at the University of Twente and another in the business world as the Shell Professor of Networked Learning. Wearing her academic robes, she supervises doctoral students, teaches graduate courses, conducts funded research, and provides an amazing amount of professional service. Wearing her business suit, she is helping Shell, one of the largest corporations in the world, identify better models of e-learning while providing a real world context for she and her graduate students to conduct R&D in innovative areas such as blended learning, learning objects, and technology-supported organizational learning. With all this, she still manages to have “a life,” and she is cherished as a wife, mother, and grandmother.
With respect to scholarship, summarizing Betty’s contributions in the few remaining words is quite a challenge. Certainly among the highlights is her leadership in developing the 4-E Model that identifies environment, (perception or expectation of) educational effectiveness, ease of use, and personal engagement as four key factors in predicting use of educational computing in practice. Another highlight is her leadership of the team that created TeleTOP, one of the first robust web-based course management systems to be used in both higher education and industry. She has performed advanced research on many other topics including the pedagogical underpinnings of using computers and telecommunications technology for education and training, the adoption of ICT for higher education around the world, and organization learning. As a methodologist, she has created improved approaches to evaluation research and the scholarship of teaching.
With respect to teaching, Betty has an outstanding reputation as a teacher, included being chosen as the “Instructor of the Year” by her students and colleagues at the University of Twente. She has been a true pioneer in the application of technologies such as teleconferencing systems and Web-based Instruction to support flexible learning. She has guided numerous Doctoral and Masters students and provided superior mentoring for young scholars from around the world. She frequently provides tutorials and workshops at international conferences on topics such as web-based instruction, educational telecommunications, evaluation research, and flexible learning.
With respect to service, Betty’s noteworthy contributions include multiple roles in a score of international professional associations, most notably the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE) and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), of which she is a lifetime honorary member. She has been a significant contributor to many IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Working Groups and a member of the Editorial Boards for numerous refereed journals, including: the International Journal on E-Learning, The Internet in Higher Education journal, the Interactive Learning Environments journal, the Journal of Interactive Learning Research, the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, the Computers & Education journal, the International Journal for Educational Telecommunications, and the Journal of Research on Computing in Education.
On a personal note, I have known Betty Collis for at least fifteen years, and I value our friendship dearly. My colleagues and I have had the good fortune to have Betty visit our Instructional Technology program at The University of Georgia, and we all sincerely hope she will “come on down” to UGA again soon. In addition to being a world-class scholar, Betty is a fun person, as is her life partner, Jef, whether it involves trying out exotic ethnic restaurants, bumping along in a thrill ride at Disneyland, or walking awestruck through amazing art galleries in The Netherlands.
Everyone has faults, of course, and I am forced to admit that Betty is not perfect. Her major failing is that as a professional role model, her amazing productivity has probably set the bar far too high for the rest of us. But then, as even Sir Isaac Newton noted, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Betty Collis is definitely someone upon whose shoulders many a career has been, is being, and will be launched. As a result, her enormous contributions to our field will go on and on.
Moonen, J., & Collis, B. (2002). Core connections.Education and Training Research and Development (ETRD), 50(3), 112-118.