Prof Santosh Panda retired as Director of the Staff Training & Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE) and the Malviya Mission Teacher Training Centre(MMTTC) at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. A graduate in Economics and master’s in Education, he has a PhD in Education (Kurukshetra), Fulbright Post-Doctoral (UNM/ USA), Certificate in Education TV (BBC/ UK), and Certificate in Online Teaching (Maryland/ USA). Dr Panda started university teaching in 1984, and has above 40 years of experience in teaching, research and administration. In the past, he has been: Chairperson, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), Government of India; Director, Policy & Research, Association of Indian Universities (AIU); Director, Centre for Flexible Learning, The University of the South Pacific, Fiji; and Founding Director, Inter-University Consortium for ICT, IGNOU. An internationally recognised leader of ODL from the Global South, he has presented keynotes and workshops in over 30 countries; presented convocation address in three universities; and has been consultant for ADB, COL, DfID/BC, Ford Foundation, GTZ, IDRC, SADC, UNDP, UNESCO, and the World Bank. He has been visiting professor at: Manchester Metropolitan University/UK, University of London/UK, Beijing Normal University/China, University of Maryland University College/USA (& University of Oldenburg/Germany), UNISA/South Africa, and University of Guadalajara/Mexico. He is a member of UNESCO international awards committee of the Indian National Commission for UNESCO/ Ministry of Education, Government of India; member of the Yoga Certification Board-TC, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India; Mentor, National Child Rights Research Fellowship Committee, Child Rights & You (CRY); Mentor, ODL Practitioner Research Training & Mentorship Initiative, COL, Canada. He has been programme director for long-term training of Indian bureaucrats on ODL, sponsored by the DOPT/ GoI and UNDP; and programme director for training of 1.5 million university and college teachers on NEP-2020 at IGNOU under the Ministry of Education & University Grants Commission.

He specialises and publishes in areas of: Distance, Online and Blended Learning; Teacher Education and Staff Development; Higher Education Policy, Costing and Quality, and Curriculum, Pedagogy and Technology; Open Schooling and Open Vocational Education; Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practices; and Programme Evaluation. His recent books include: Case Studies on Blended Learning in Higher Education (2024/ Springer); Pedagogy in Practice (2022/ Bloomsbury); Technology Enabled Learning (2021/ COL); Planning & Management in Distance Education (2017/ Routledge, also translated into Chinese by UNESCO); Economics of Distance and Online Learning (2008/ Routledge). He is the Chief Editor of Scopus-indexed Journal of Learning for Development, published by the Commonwealth of Learning/ Canada. He has guided above 19 masters’ dissertations, 5 MPhil dissertations and 9 PhD theses; and conducted international research projects funded by BC/ UK, IDRC-CRDI/ Canada, COL/Canada, GTZ/Germany. He sat in the editorial board of above 15 refereed journals, mostly published by Routledge.

Recent/Forthcoming Publications:

Panda, S. (2025). Globalization, liberalization and technology in higher education. In P. K. Misra & N. Sabharwal (eds.), India higher education report 2024 - Technology and higher education. Routledge (forthcoming).

Mishra, S. & Panda, S. (Eds.) (2025). Handbook of open universities around the world. New York: Routledge (forthcoming). https://www.routledge.com/Handbook-of-Open-Universities-Around-the-World/Mishra-Panda/p/book/9781032754055

Misra, P., Mishra, S. & Panda, S. (Eds.) (2025). Case studies on blended learning in higher education: Design, development and delivery. Springer. (forthcoming) https://link.springer.com/book/9789819607211

Panda, S. (2024).University and teacher education. In P. Panda (Ed.), Teacher education landscapes in India: Governance and quality management (pp 29-55). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003489245-3/university-teacher-education-santosh-panda?context=ubx&refId=ce02e1fa-c8a5-48a5-a8ea-41e8c86c5b03

Mustafa, M. Y., …Panda, S, …(2024).A systematic review of literature reviews on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED): A road map to a future research agenda. Smart Learning Environments, 11(59). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-024-00350-5

Panda, S., Mishra, S. & Misra, P. (Eds.) (2024). Case studies on blended learning in higher education: Policy, planning, and quality assurance. Springer https://link.springer.com/book/9789819793877

Panda, S. (2024). Cost analysis and return on investment for blended learning. In S. Panda, S. Mishra. & P.K. Misra (Eds.)(2024). Case studies on blended learning in higher Education: Policy, planning, and quality assurance. Springer https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-9388-4_7

Mishra, S., Panda, S. & Misra, P. K. (2024). Blended learning in higher education: Framing and futures. In S.Panda, S.Mishra. & P. Misra (Eds.) (2024). Case studies on blended learning in higher education: Policy, planning, and quality assurance. Springer https://link.springer.com/book/9789819793877

Panda, S. (2023). Quo Vadis - Stock taking and reflections on researching open, distance and digital education. In R. A. Folake and D. Coetzee (Eds.), Researching DE in the developing context: Building practice into theory. Pretoria: Emerging Scholars Initiative.

Panda, S. (2023). Evolving learner support systems. In O. Zawacki-Richter & I. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of open, distance and digital education (pp 841-859). Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-19-2080-6_46

Adhya, D. & Panda, S. (2022).Teacher educators' attitude towards technology-enabled learning and its incorporation into teaching-learning during and post-pandemic. Educational Media International, 59(2), 131-149. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2022.2101204

Das,B.Panda, S.&Parthasarathi, V.(eds)(2022) Pedagogy in practice: Project-based learning in media policy and governance. Bloomsbury.https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pedagogy-in-practice-9789354359675/

Das, R.P.& Panda, S.(Eds.)(2021), National Education Policy 2020: Issues, challenges, and reflections. Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Mishra, S & Panda, S.(Eds)(2020)Technology-enabled learning: Policy, pedagogy and practices. Vancouver: The Commonwealth of Learning. http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/3655

Panda, S. (2020). Return on investment from an open online course on open educational resources. In S. Mishra & S. Panda (eds.), Technology-enabled learning: Policy, pedagogy and practice (pp199-212). The Commonwealth of Learning.

Panda, S. (2019). Linking skill programmes with academic programmes in higher education. Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia.

Panda, S. (Ed.) (2017). Planning and management in distance education. HB. London & New York: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Planning-and-Management-in-Distance-Education/Panda/p/book/9781138164871