Burks Oakley, Director of U of I Online Receives Sloan-C Award

Sloan-C Honors Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning

Needham, MA -- The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), an association of more than 450 institutions and organizations of higher education engaged in online learning, will present the 2003 awards at the 9th Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Florida, November 15, 2003.
Since 1992 when the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation began giving grants to institutions for online learning initiatives, “We’ve gone from several hundred students enrolled in online education courses to two million,” said Frank Mayadas, President of Sloan-C. “This is in no small part due to the efforts of the individuals who have advanced the field and the institutions that are leading the way.”

The Sloan-C 2003 award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Teaching & Learning by an Individual will be awarded to Dr. Burks Oakley II, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois. Oakley is known internationally for his leadership activities, service, and contributions to the better understanding of online teaching and learning.

Dr. William Pelz of Herkimer County Community College will receive the Sloan-C 2003 award for Excellence in Online Teaching. Having taught more than eighty sections in a complete online format, Pelz leads faculty development efforts for the SUNY Learning Network, personally facilitating workshops at eight regional training locations throughout New York State more than one hundred days per year.

The award for Most Outstanding Online Teaching & Learning Program will be awarded to the University of Maryland University College for its Master of Distance Education (MDE). Its global student body of more than 300 students from 38 states and 12 nations are prepared to engage in the planning, design, implementation, delivery, and support of distance education and distance training programs.

Web.Campus.Stevens of the Stevens Institute of Technology will receive the Sloan-C award for Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Teaching & Learning Programming. WebCampus.Stevens’ graduate-level programs include some 160 courses and four online graduate degrees (CyberSecurity, Networked Information Systems, Microelectronics and Photonics, and Telecommunications Management) and 22 certificates. WebCampus.Stevens is co-sponsored by some of the most prominent engineering societies and industry associations, with combined membership greater than 800,000 worldwide: IEEE, ACM, ASME International, AICHE, SNAME, NECA, and the Global Wireless Education Consortium.

The award for Excellence in Online Teaching & Learning Faculty Development will be given to the University of Central Florida for its Faculty Development Initiative. Approximately 75% of all UCF faculty are engaged in teaching online courses, developing nearly 2,000 online courses, including 9 online degree programs and 6 online graduate certificates, with an annual growth rate of 35%.

The Sloan-C Awards Selection Committee for 2003 was comprised of James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University of Michigan, Judith S. Eaton, President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation, John V. Lombardi, President, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Joseph McDonald, President, Salish- Kootenai College, Sidney A. McPhee, President, Middle Tennessee State University, William Messner, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin Colleges, Diana Oblinger, Executive Director of Higher Education, Microsoft Corporation, and Eric E. Fredericksen, Director of Distributed Learning Services, Cornell University served as the non-voting committee chair.

The purpose of Sloan-C is to help continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of online learning so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines. Created with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Sloan-C encourages the collaborative sharing of knowledge and effective practices. Membership is open to academic institutions, government and corporate agencies, and organizations that support quality in higher education. See www.sloan-c.org for more information.