Univ.-Prof. Dr.med.univ. Josef Smolle, born 1958, qualified as a medical doctor in 1981 and as a dermatologist 1987 and became Associate Professor in 1988.

In 2006, he was appointed as Full Professor for New Media in Medical Education at the Institute of Medical Informatics, Medical University of Graz, Austria.

He launched and developed the so-called Virtual Medical Campus as one of the first university-wide elearning platforms in Austria. From 2008 to 2016 Smolle served as rector of the Medical University of Graz. He has a track record of 280 publications with a cumulative impact factor of 462, more than 6100 citations and an h-index of 41. His main research topics today are instructional design, effectivity and efficiency in elearning and particularly in microlearning.