Prof. Dr. Cevat ALKAN through the eyes of his students

Abstract

The aim of this study is to describe Prof. Dr. Cevat Alkan and his contributions to the development of the field of educational technology in Turkey, via his students' views. Prof. Dr. Alkan is the founder of the field of educational technology in Turkey. In 1975, he became an associate professor with the thesis entitled "Eğitim Teknolojisi (Educational Technology)", and in 1983 with the thesis entitled "Açık Üniversite (Open University)" owned the title of professor. Besides, until 1996 he performed as a head of educational technology department at Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ankara University. And during this period, he provided fundamental contributions for training dozens of students of undergraduate and graduate level in the field of educational technology both in Ankara University and other universities in Turkey. In this study, history method was used. In this process, an interview was carried out with Prof. Dr. Alkan’s family about his daily and academic life. And an online qualitative questionnaire developed by the researchers was administered to Prof. Dr. Alkan's students determined by the purposive sampling method about his academic characteristics. Based on the data, firstly we described Prof. Alkan’s short life story and academic activities. Afterwards, his academic characteristics which have an important place in today’s educational technology field culture in Turkey were identified. As a conclusion, Prof. Dr. Alkan’s professional qualifications are grouped under three themes: scientific, instructor and personality characteristics