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Uniting Blended Learning and Service Learning

Blended learning and service learning are both growing trends in American higher education, but uniting the two can be a challenge.  This is just what Sandra Poindexter, professor of computer...

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Nibbled to Death by Ducks: Implications for the Department Chair

“Nibbled to death by ducks.” The phrase, though nearly three centuries old, is still remarkably apt for the role of the department chair today. Our jobs are filled with little nibbles taken out of our...

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Assessing Online Instructor Competency

With the rapid expansion of distance programs at large public institutions and the influx of new faculty that goes along with that, the question of the qualification of applicants for faculty positions...

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Failing Gracefully

Make no mistake about it: If you serve long enough as a university administrator, sooner or later you will fail at something - massively, undeniably, and embarrassingly. Either the result that you...

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Liberated from Distance Learning Myths

Every field develops its own conventional wisdom, beliefs that are so much a part of the consciousness that they are rarely questioned. Distance education is no different. That is, unless you are Barry...

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Motivational Interviewing: A Communication Strategy for Addressing Faculty...

Conversations with faculty members about their performance can be stressful for the academic leader and the individual faculty member, particularly if there are significant performance issues to...

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3 (of 8) Keys to Marketing Your Online Program

The University of Southern Mississippi started completely from scratch when it began marketing its online programs through the Office of Academic Support.  The office “originally had nothing to do with...

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Preparing for and Managing Academic Scandals

Academic scandals can arise at any institution at any time, and a big factor in how well the institution emerges and moves on from a scandal is largely dependent on the way administrators handle the...

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Understanding Prior Learning Assessment: A Key to the Adult Student Market

Prior learning assessment is a hot topic in higher education today.  With an emphasis on degree completion and adult learning, giving non-traditional students credit for their past learning is a...

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Tips for Converting to E-portfolios for Faculty Personnel Review

All retention, promotion, and instructional academic staff rehiring decisions at my institution depend on electronic portfolios drawn from a common source, as do all internal annual reports and some...

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Running a MOOC: Secrets of the World’s Largest Distance Education Classes

What can distance education do that traditional classroom instruction cannot? Among other things, it can master time, space, and physical capacity on a scale impossible for a face-to-face class. The...

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The Collegiality Assessment Matrix: Its Time Has Come

Those of us who attend conferences devoted to administrative development are often amazed by the sheer number of sessions and presentations dealing with collegiality (or the lack thereof). We realize...

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The Process Approach to Blended Learning: Learning Beyond the Classroom

Nate Cottle, professor of human environmental sciences at the University of Central Oklahoma, uses the process approach to learning as delineated by William Horton (2006) in his online and blended...

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Supporters and Critics: Both Are Essential to Change

When Juliette Bell became provost and vice president for academic affairs at Central State University in 2009, she had several ideas about how the institution could be improved. Specifically, she...

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Understanding Copyright and Ownership: A Primer for Distance Education

 “Fair use allows me to copy anything for my class in any amount.” “Anything a student creates for my class belongs to me.” “I can use anything in my distance education class the just as I do in a...

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When Academic Deans Partner with Enrollment Managers

One of the repeated themes throughout higher education thus far in the 21st century has been interconnectivity. Increasingly the silos that have long separated academic disciplines according to their...

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Managing Online Programs: 5 Steps to Success

Managing online programs is an important endeavor, and one that takes a great deal of contextual understanding and preparation.  Stella Porto, of the Graduate School of Management and Technology for...

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A Strategic, Integrative, Goal-Driven Approach to Teaching Evaluation

Evaluating teaching can be an anxiety-inducing endeavor for both the instructor and the evaluator. The problem: “There’s not a lot of general agreement on what constitutes effective teaching...

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E-Learning Security: Problems and Solutions

For Yair Levy, associate professor of information systems at Nova Southeastern University, interest in e-learning security started the day he heard a department chair justify mandating proctored exams...

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Coordinating Planning and Implementation of Strategic Initiatives

Units within higher education institutions are often characterized as having little knowledge or interest in what happens in other units or at the institutional level. There are many reasons to be...

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There’s a Free Tool for (Almost) Any Learning Style!

Huss and Eastep formed the idea of creating an Introduction to Education course that would not only deliver the instructional content but at the same time would model for these future teachers the...

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How to Promote a Healthy Department

Ongoing problems within a department can have profound consequences, including difficulty in recruiting and retaining faculty and students, loss of funding, and even program termination. While the...

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Reaching Four Special Populations

Distance learning has long been lauded for its ability to reach diverse and geographically diffuse populations at any time, but that very flexibility means that it must serve a variety of challenging...

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Addressing Issues of Collegiality in Faculty Evaluation

Two concerns are often raised when department chairs attempt to address breaches of collegiality through the faculty evaluation process. The first is whether they’re permitted to do so at all, since...

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The Value of an Online MBA: Employers’ Perceptions

An MBA may be the quintessential career-centered degree, operating as a gateway for many individuals to the managerial and upper level jobs at many organizations.  At the same time, many individuals...

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Researching Collegiality: Can We All Get Along?

In its most simplistic state, “collegiality” could be defined as all of us “getting along.” And yet, for a topic that is universally considered a critical component of the essence of the academy, its...

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What Makes Faculty Members Participate in Distance Learning?

Encouraging faculty to participate in distance learning has been a concern since the very first days of online delivery methods, and probably before.  There are issues regarding pedagogical quality,...

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10 Things I Never Knew about Being an Academic Chair: Lessons Learned from...

My professional goals have always included teaching but never administration. I tended to be a bit judgmental and suspicious of administration. However, after five years in an elementary classroom and...

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From Real to Virtual Classrooms: The 5 Key Transition Points

Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan is the Director of Faculty Development for Penn State's World Campus. Ragan has written and spoken extensively about the skills necessary for effective online teaching. Lately, he...

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Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

There’s an old joke that goes, “Question: How many administrators does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: One more than last year.” When told by faculty members, that joke at times has a real...

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Is Blended the Most Effective Format for Adults?

SUNY Empire State College was founded with a focus on the adult learner and has structured its programs around the beliefs that adults “know what they need to learn,” that they “have experience worthy...

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Seven Steps for Enriching Ethics in Academic Leadership

“For action is indeed the sole medium of expression for ethics. We continually forget that the sphere of morals is the sphere of action, that speculation in regard to morality is but observation and...

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The Keys to Staffing an Online Program

Do you feel on solid ground when it’s time to hire new online faculty or staff? Here are sample hiring criteria for three key positions in any online program –the course author or designer, the course...

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Academic Leaders as Introverts and Extroverts

In a position such as department chair or dean where interpersonal skills are so important, you might think that all academic leaders would be extroverts. In fact, once while I was out on an interview,...

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Using the Data You Have: Learning Analytics to Increase Student Success

Learning analytics have attracted a great deal of attention in the past 18 to 20 months, says Charles Dziuban, director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the Center for...

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What Types of Support Do Adjuncts Need?

With part-time faculty now the majority of instructors at most higher education institutions, it’s important to provide them with the support they need to succeed. But what kind of support do they find...

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Blended Learning: How to Optimally Integrate Online and F2F

Blended learning entails more than simply replacing class time with online course elements or supplementing an online course with face-to-face meetings. To be successful, the online and face-to-face...

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Curriculum Restructuring Provides Opportunities for Emerging Leaders

At many institutions, development of leaders begins once people are selected for formal leadership positions. This approach is partly the result of a resistance to leader development borne of higher...

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Staying Inside Copyright Law: Six Pragmatic Options

At both the beginning and end of each day, it is important to remember that there are only so many options for designing and delivering distance education courses that comply with copyright and fair...

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Bottom-Line Leadership

A friend of mine posed a question that I’ve been grappling with: “Why are so many college and university presidents so … bad?” The question caught me off guard since many of the college presidents I...

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Community College to University: How Dual Enrollment Can Aid Retention and Cost

Starting a college education at a community college and finishing it at a four-year university is not a new idea; countless financial advisors have suggested students and families consider this option...

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Using Senior Exit Interviews to Improve Academic Programs

When Muhlenberg College’s dean of institutional assessment called for academic departments to develop internal assessment plans, the goal in the department of mathematics and computer science was to...

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Meeting Demand, Maintaining Quality: Developing an Online Degree Program

Through market research, the director of the University of Tennessee at Martin’s online interdisciplinary studies program—a former business faculty member—determined there was a need for more...

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Speaking Truth to Power

It’s difficult enough to tell your supervisor something that he or she doesn’t want to hear when the two of you have a good relationship. But what do you do when there are personality conflicts or a...

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What We Can Learn from Unsuccessful Online Students

There are many studies that look at how online students differ from those in face-to-face classes in terms of performance, satisfaction, engagement, and other factors.  It is well-known that online...

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Utilization of an Open Feedback Process Model to Develop a University Mission...

Changes in the culture of higher education have led many institutions to use their mission statements as guides for day-to-day university activities. The growing centrality of university mission...

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How to Show Your Program’s Best “Virtual Face”

Most institutions rank distance education as one of their priorities, but how well are they demonstrating their commitment?  To find out, Stephanie J. Jones of Texas Tech University and Katrina A....

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Academic Leadership and the M Word

You can get a really impassioned faculty discussion going just by mentioning “the M Word:” motivation. Try being intentionally provocative sometime and drop “But isn’t it your job to motivate...

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Taking the Plunge into Mobile Learning: The Basics

Nomophobia is a neologism defined as “the fear of being out of mobile phone contact.” One study in Britain found over half of all mobile phone users were anxious when they “lose their mobile phone, run...

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Is Time Up for the Credit Hour?

How do we know if a student has learned enough to attain a degree or credential?  Likely, the answer is currently phrased in the form of credit hours:  64 semester hours to earn an associate’s degree,...

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