Ali Jafari - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ali Jafari
Ali Jafari , more specifically, on development of a series of Course Management System(s) (CMS). Dr. Jafari is currently working as a Professor of Computer and Information Technology at the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology and Director of the CyberLab at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis is an urban campus of Indiana University and Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Indiana University is the managing partner...

(IUPUI). He continues to bring innovation and new perspectives to the smart learning environment industry to make teaching and learning easier and more powerful.

Education and Work

Ali Jafari earned his BS in Business Administration from the University of Isfahan, Iran, before he moved to the United States to pursue a MS in Media Technology at the University of Wisconsin. He completed doctorate studies in Telecommunications/Mass Communication from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Since then, Jafari has envisioned, created and commercialized three major software systems, which are competing among the half a dozen nationally known CMS or LMS products such as Blackboard, Moodle and Desire2Learn. Jafari's projects included Indiana University's (1999) Oncourse (now Sakai), ANGEL Learning Management System (2000), acquired by Blackboard in May 2009, and Epsilen Environment.

Recognized as the board member, founder and “chief architect officer” (2008–2010) of Epsilen, he is distinguished by his entrepreneurship as well as his innovative academic research. Applying to Indiana University for the project’s seed money initially funded ANGEL LEARNING INC. In less than a decade ANGEL became an industry competitor and was acquired (May 2009) by Blackboard for $100 million. His most recent company is Epsilen LLC intended to commercialize his latest research and development project called Epsilen. By forming a partnership and securing venture capital from The New York Times Company, Epsilen is becoming one of the fastest growing IT company's headquartered in Indianapolis (www.epsilen.com).

Research and Interests

Recognized as a founding “Father of CMS”, Dr. Jafari has contributed his entrepreneurial savvy to three books, co-editing and authoring Handbook of Research on ePortfolios, Designing Portals and Course Management Systems for Learning: Beyond Accidental Pedagogy. He has presented papers and delivered keynote addresses in over a hundred national and international conferences. His research has been published in professional and scholarly journals on a variety of subjects in information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

. His research interests include user interface design, smart learning environments, distance learning, and intelligent agents both from conceptual and architectural perspectives, which guide the Professor’s passion for improving the integration of technology into teaching and learning.

Dr. Jafari desires to see the milestones of research go further than the acquisition of knowledge. In order to tackle real life problems, he feels, "It would be progress if higher education were to put a greater emphasis on commercialization of discoveries—perhaps even assigning commercialization the same level of importance as getting published and attracting grants”. In the future, he hopes to further develop products for commercialization to effectively exploit the uses and opportunities of modern technology in education.

Education and Work

Research and Interests

See also