[5][6] He played a role in the early development of massive online open courses (MOOCs).

Siemens earned his PhD in psychology at the University of Aberdeen in 2011 under the supervision of Frank Rennie, Martin Weller, and Robin Mason.

His thesis developed the Sensemaking Wayfinding Information Model (SWIM) to understand individual behavior in social networks.

[9] Siemens commenced his role at the University of South Australia in 2017 as the Director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning.

In 2008, Siemens and Stephen Downes designed and taught a massive online open course (MOOC) which was reported as a "landmark in the small but growing push toward 'open teaching'" by the Chronicle of Higher Education.