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Issue Contents Online Learning and the American Workforce Why the continuing growth and accessibility of online education is vital to the ability of the American workforce to grow, adapt and change in the face of globalization Testimony of A. Frank Mayadas, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, Washington, D.C. This commission is chartered by the Secretary of Education and chaired by Charles Miller. Many Americans would benefit from access to courses and degrees in higher education, and at the same time continue their responsibilities in the workplace and to their families. For many, such an opportunity is a necessity for competing effectively in the global economy by learning new skills or upgrading existing ones. That opportunity is made possible today by online education, now being provided by over 1,000 accredited institutions. This includes schools such as Stanford, Penn State, University of Texas and the University of Illinois; smaller ones such as Pace University in New York, and Lesley College in Massachusetts; and community colleges such as Kirkwood in Iowa, Northern Virginia Community College, and Rio Salado in Arizona. Today there are over 2.5 million people taking such courses, mostly for credit, and they are being taught by over 100,000 faculty. Online education opportunities allow learning in a wide range of subjects at a place and at a time of the learner's choosing. Courses span a wide range of subjects from Masters and Bachelors and Associates degrees in Biology or Engineering and Computer Science to courses directly aimed at specific industries such as an Associate degree in Telecommunications emphasizing installation and repair. For more on the schools involved and the courses available see the catalog at www.sloan-c.org. With over a decade of large- scale experience behind it, online education is no longer an experiment, it is a proven way of learning. There is an opportunity today to expand it to an even larger scale that can have a national impact. For the full text, click here. Quality Matters: Inter-Institutional Quality Improvement for Online Courses The Search for, and Development of, Interinstitutional Course Review Tools John Sener, Sener Learning Services Quality Matters (QM), a project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Secondary Education (FIPSE) and administered by MarylandOnline (MOL), is now completing its third and final year of grant funding. Designed to address statewide and national needs for the credible quality assurance in online learning, the QM project relies on inter-institutional collaboration as an integral and essential feature of project organization, implementation, and impact. The project has exceeded its goals related to creating a replicable inter-institutional continuous improvement model to assess, assure, and improve the quality of online courses. Accomplishments to date include:
The project continues to generate a lot of interest nationwide. Since Fall 2005, QM team members have conducted Peer Reviewer training sessions, workshops, and other QM presentations in more than a dozen states. The project has continued to expad beyond Maryland to involve consortia in at least nine other states (Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming) in the QM process. The project has had continued success in pioneering the use of inter-institutional peer review teams as an integral part of the quality improvement process, including expanding the peer reviewer pool to involve faculty from institutions in 25 other states in the peer review process. The QM has also continued to be an effective vehicle for faculty professional development. Faculty participants have been almost unanimously positive about peer review training, with over 95% of faculty agreeing with the statement that the QM project will positively impact teaching and learning at their institution. The QM project is currently involved with and exploring avenues for sustaining the project for the long term. The QM project's success to date demonstrates the high degree of interest among online learning practitioners in tools and processes which effectively support efforts to improve quality. For more details about QM, visit the project web site at www.qualitymatters.org. (John Sener is Founder and Chief Learner for Sener Learning Services, a consulting practice focused on supporting the evolution of online and other technology-enabled learning environments. He, Christina Sax and Mary Wells will be presenting the workshop, Using the Quality Matters Rubric to Improve Your Online Courses.) Success in Online Learning - A Southern U.S. Focus New Report from SREB and Sloan Consortium Finds SREB States among National Leaders in Online Learning According to the recently released study, Growing By Degrees-The Southern Edition of Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005, Southern Edition, online learning is thriving in the 16-member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) when compared with the rest of the nation. The first-of-its-kind report by SREB was conducted in partnership with the Sloan Consortium. The number of students using online courses in colleges and universities is higher on average for SREB states than for the nation. College officials in SREB states consistently show more positive interest in online learning than their counterparts do nationally, according to survey results in the first annual report on online learning in the South, Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005, Southern Edition. The patterns of growth and acceptance of online education among the 16 SREB states in this report are similar to those observed for the national sample, with one clear difference: Online learning has made greater inroads in SREB states than in the nation as a whole. Some highlights from the report:
Click here for more information or to download your copy of Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005, Southern Edition.
Barrier Buster Award Given to SREB, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and The Sloan Consortium The Southern Regional Education Board's efforts to assist college and university students impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been recognized with a prestigious award from a national distance learning organization. SREB received the 2006 Irving-Barrier Buster Award along with its partners in the "Sloan Semester," a project that provided online courses for college students in hurricane-damaged areas. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Sloan Consortium partnered with SREB on the project and also won the award. For the full text, click here. Learn From the Experts - The Sloan-C 2006 Workshop Series Back by popular demand, the "Using Quality Matters Rubric to Improve your Online Courses" workshop is being held again this July. Don't miss the last workshop of the summer. Using the Quality Matters Rubric to Improve your Online Courses - July 5-21 Sloan-C announces an interactive online workshop focused on learning how to improve your online course(s). Learn how to use the rubric tool developed by the nationally recognized, FIPSE-funded Quality Matters (QM) project. The QM rubric provides a research-supported framework with annotations and examples for applying quality practices to specific course design standards. Affirm the strong areas in your course(s) and generate specific ideas for improvements. The QM rubric is the centerpiece of the QM process.
We would love to hear from you. Please e-mail Sloan-CView@sloan-c.org with any questions or comments. |
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The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is composed of institutions and organizations dedicated to continually improving the quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs, according to their own distinctive missions, so that education becomes a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines. The Sloan-C View is published by Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C™). Responsibility for the contents rests with the authors and not with Sloan-C™. Copyright ©2006 by Sloan-C™. If you have a question or comment, would like to submit an article for publication, or would like to suggest an event to be listed on the Sloan-C View Calendar, please email sloan-cview@sloan-c.org. Materials in the Sloan-C View, unless otherwise noted, may be distributed freely for educational purposes. However, if any materials are redistributed they must retain the copyright notice and use the proper citation. Kindly send an email to sloan-cview@sloan-c.org indicating how you are using the material for distribution. Your privacy is important to us, you can view our privacy policy at www.sloan-c.org/aboutus/privacy.asp | |||||||