Brian Stewart

Brian moved to Canada in 1988 from Ireland, and settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, before moving to St. Albert Alberta to join Athabasca University.

Brian joined Athabasca University in 2003 as Director of Operations at the Centre for Innovative Management and was appointed to his current position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) in 2004. As CIO, Brian's role is to provide strategic leadership to the application of Information and communications technology (ICT) to the activities of the University. Brian is charged with identifying and resourcing appropriate technologies to improve administrative effectiveness and efficiency; to assist the academic community's use of ICT to develop programs which improve students' learning and success; and to facilitate the research and development of world class e-learning initiatives.

Brian is currently actively engaged in leading the University's eKnowledge initiatives, the current projects include:
adoption and integration of the Moodle learning management system and the Alfresco content management system,
redesign and development of online student services,
implementation of Zimbra collaboration suite and other collaborative tools,
sustainable redesign of the data centre and network infrastructure, and
design and implementation of ICT capital, costing, and project management methodologies

Brian also plays an active role in the Post Secondary ICT Community, he is a board member for both the Association of Alberta for Higher Education Information Technology, and CIPS Alberta, and is chair of the Alberta Post secondary Application System CIO's Group. Brian also has published on the use of ICT in printing and education and is an active contributor to Edcause forums and publications.

Brian graduated from Athabasca's Centre for Innovative Management in 2000 with an MBA. He also holds an MA in Economics from University College Cork in Ireland.