Speaking Personally–with Otto Peters

Abstract

Professor Otto Peters (*06 May 1926 in Berlin, Germany) is one of the leading pioneers and scholars of distance education and founding rector of the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. Professor Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Otto Peters’ last doctoral student, conducted the interview. Otto Peters talks about how he first came into contact with distance learning as a student during World War II. While working at the German Institute of Distance Education, as head of the department for distance education abroad, he invented the term “distance education.” He talks about the development of distance education in Europe, the establishment of the FernUniversität in Hagen, and how he was appointed as the first rector of the new distance teaching university in Germany. Finally, Otto Peters reflects on the impact and reception of his theory of distance education as the most industrialized form of education, which has made him a globally recognized theorist in the field of distance education research.