Börje Holmberg

Boerje Holmberg was born in Malmoe, Sweden, in 1924, entered the University of Lund in 1943, graduated as Fil. Mag in 1946 in English, German, Romance Languages and Education. Besides military service and work as a schoolmaster, administrator of university extension work, lecturer at a teacher-training college, all in Sweden, he studied English linguistics inclusive of Primitive Germanic at doctoral level and aquired a research degree (Fil. Lic.) in 1953. Research in English phonology resulted in a publication on early eighteenth-century pronunciation, a doctorate and formal qualification as a university lecturer in 1956.

Beside his research Boerje Holmberg did some work for the then largest distance-teaching organisation in Europe, Hermods in Sweden, developed courses in English for both university study and for school level in 1953-55 and organised the university teaching of Hermods, which started in the early 1950s. In 1956 he accepted an invitation to become educational director of Hermods. Since then he worked full time in distance education.

Hermods was owned and run by a non-profit making foundation. In the 1955-75 period it annually enrolled between 57,000 and 100,000 students, most of them for very short courses, but some for complete study programmes leading to, for example, university entrance qualification, competence as accountant, engineer etc. as well as degree examinations. In the early 70s it proved financially impossible to continue this work without changing the policy so far adopted of providing educational facilities whereever they were needed. Boerje Holmberg who in 1966 has been appointed Director General of Hermods Foundation, initiated contact with the Swedish government with the view to securing this policy. In fact, 1975 the Government took over Hermods, which meant receiving a substantial donation in the form of buildings, equipment, courses printed and recorded, cars etc. and shares in Swedish industry. However, instead of allowing Hermods to work independently as before, the government made it part of state-owned publishing house. At this stage Holmberg resigned from Hermods.

While this was happening in Sweden, the Government of the State of Northrhine-Westphalia in Germany was creating a distance-teaching university, the FernUniversitaet. Boerje Holmberg was invited to a chair in distance-education methodology there and accepted. In 1976 he was made Director of the FernUniversitaet Institute for Distance-Education Research and remained as such until retirement towards the end of 1990.

During his time at Hermods Holmberg had published studies in distance education, three monographs and several articles. At the FernUniversitaet he could concentrate on research and, while there, published several books and a great many contributions to learned journals. Among his works can be mentioned "Theory and Practice of Distance Education", a second and revised edition of which was published by Routledge (London, New York) in 1990, "Growth and Structure of Distance Education" (Croom Helm, London, 1986), "Mediated Communication as a Component of Distance Education" (FernUniversitaet, Hagen, 1989), "Distance Teaching of Foreign Languages" (FernUniversitaet, Hagen, 1989), a number of research reports, thus, e.g., on his empathy approach and theory of guided didactic conversation, a distance-education course on distance education and a bibliography of writings on distance education.

After his retirement from the FernUniversitaet Boerje Holmberg has continued contributing both to research and debate on distance education, for example by articles in "Open Learning" and "Epistolodidaktika". He is also active as a practioner in the field. Thus he has taken part in the planning of a new distance-teaching polytechnic in Hessen, Germany. He is now Rector of this, the "Private FernFachhochschule Darmstadt", which was given the recognition of the Hessian Ministry of Science in November 1996 and is to register its first students in April 1997.

Boerje Holmberg has been awarded honorary doctorates by Deakin University in Australia and the Open University in the United Kingdom. he is a member of Kungliga Fysiografiska Saellskapet i Lund, an academy of sciences founded in 1792, is a Knight of Royal Order of Vasa, Sweden, as well as of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.