Online education award for UIS
Last fall, UIS won a national award for
Excellence in Institution-Wide Online
Teaching & Learning Programming from
the Sloan Consortium.
"For UIS to receive a national award of
this magnitude for excellence among the
thousands of colleges and universities
with online programs across the country is
most extraordinary," said UIS Chancellor
Richard Ringeisen.
The Sloan Consortium, comprised of more
than 1,200 higher education institutions
engaged in online learning, is a national
organization dedicated to quality online
teaching. UIS was the only institution to
receive an award, of the six granted this
year, for institution-wide instructional
programming.
Ray Schroeder, director of UIS' Office of
Technology-Enhanced Learning, said "The
award is particularly gratifying because it
belongs to everyone at UIS, not an individual
or department, but to the entire university."
Online coursework began at UIS in 1998
with 30 students. In the fall 2007 semester,
nearly 50 percent of UIS students took at
least one online class, and more than 1,000
students from 49 states and nine foreign
countries were enrolled in the campus'
16 fully online degree programs and two
certificate programs.
With substantial support from the Sloan
Foundation and other organizations,
UIS has integrated online courses and
programs, both taught by the same faculty,
into its mainstream curriculum. A total
of 185 instructors — more than half of
UIS' full- and part-time faculty members
— taught at least one class online in the
2007-08 academic year. In-state and out-of-state
students pay the same tuition rate for
online UIS courses.
The Sloan Consortium presented the
2007 awards in November 2007 at the
13th Sloan-C International Conference
on Online Learning: The Power of
Online Learning: Making a Difference,
in Orlando, Fla.
Reporting: Shari McCurdy, Office of Technology-Enhanced Learning
