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Five Purdue instructors awarded for quality distance ed courses

Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) awarded cash prizes to five Purdue faculty members for developing a high-quality distance education course in 2008.

The award winners developed classes that were evaluated highly in the areas of course design, interaction or collaboration, assessment and learner support.
• Emily Bouck, EDPS 568 - Social, Legal and Ethical Issues in Special Education
• Peg Ertmer and Minchi Kim, EDCI 513 - Foundations of Educational Technology
• Ellen Gundlach, STAT 301 - Elementary Statistical Methods
• Deb Saks, OLS 440 - Leading with Integrity

To be eligible for the award, faculty attended a set of instructional technology and distance education workshops in May 2008 and consulted with instructional and educational technologiests from the Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT) unit of ITaP or Continuing Education and Conferences (CEC). Next, faculty submitted their courses for review to ITaP's instructional technologists. Those courses that scored well in the evaluation process received a $3,000 award.

Run in conjunction with CEC, the goal of ITaP's Distance Education Incentive Awards program is to support the development of quality distance education courses at Purdue University West Lafayette.

Benefits of program
In addition to the cash prize, program participants also valued the opportunity to improve their online courses. According to Prof. Deb Saks, "The Distance Ed Incentive Awards Program gave me the push I needed. Basically, it encouraged me, with support from the TLT team, to make my class one of high quality of which I am proud. It was well worth the work."

Prof. Emily Bouck valued the spring faculty training workshops in particular. "I appreciated the opportunity to ask questions of ITaP staff and to get started working on my online course during the training seminar. It was great to go with colleagues who were also working to put together online courses so that we could discuss design and organization as we were working."

Fellow 2008 award winner Ellen Gundlach sees the program as a valuable resource for anyone in distance education. "It was an excellent program! I really learned so much this year. I've recommended it to other people interested in distance learning, even if they don't have a course going yet."

2009 program begins soon
The 2009 Distance Education Incentive Awards program will kick off with Maymester Faculty Technology Workshops, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, May 27-28. The program is open to all Purdue University West Lafayette faculty members who have developed or are interested in developing a distance education course in a learning management system. The instructors typically spend the summer developing the course and submit it for awards consideration in late September.

The instructors whose distance education courses are judged within the top ten among submissions receive the $3,000 incentive award. They are also recognized at the 2009 TLT Conference awards presentation.

Register for a faculty workshop at http://www.itap.purdue.edu/training/course/?OfferingID=3738.

For more information about how to participate, the 2009 timeline, and the submission process, visit http://www.itap.purdue.edu/tlt/idc/awards.cfm.