UMUC Wins Prestigious National Award for Excellence in Online Education

For immediate release:
October 15, 2006

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UMUC's Training Course Recognized for "Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching" by the Sloan Consortium

(ADELPHI, Md.) – University of Maryland University College’s (UMUC) “Teaching with WebTycho” Training Course has won the award for “Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching” by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), a national consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education. The 2006 awards will be presented during the Sloan-C Awards Banquet at the 12th Sloan-C International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks in Orlando, Fla., November 8-10, 2006.

The Sloan Consortium offers two sets of awards, the Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards, and the Effective Practices Awards. A distinguished panel of judges consisting of college and university presidents and other highly regarded educators selected the Excellence Awards.

“We are thrilled to be recognized for our strong faculty training by such a respected organization that acknowledges online education excellence,” said Susan Aldridge, UMUC president. “We strive to ensure that all faculty members are equipped with the best training in order to provide a comprehensive teaching environment for our students.”

“Teaching with WebTycho,” also known as CTLA20, is an intensive five-week online course offering faculty preparation in the skills needed to teach online courses using the WebTycho management system. UMUC requires any faculty member who wishes to teach a distance education course to successfully complete this training. Developed by UMUC, WebTycho was created to facilitate course delivery via the Internet. Major functions of WebTycho include syllabus and course content as a way to deliver materials; assignment folders for students to hand in personal work; conferencing for class-wide asynchronous discussions, meaning students in online courses do not have to participate in class discussions simultaneously, allowing them to study at their convenience at any time of day; study groups for small group work; and chat rooms for real-time interaction.
 
“Our customized WebTycho program provides an extensive and interactive classroom experience to more than 88,000 UMUC students and faculty around the nation and the world,” said Dr. Susan Ko, executive director, Center for Teaching and Learning. “This award is well deserved and proves that thorough training of faculty members is an extremely important proponent to maintain in order to have a successful online learning environment.”

UMUC not only provides comprehensive training and support via diversified faculty development opportunities, but also offers programs for faculty recognition and community building. UMUC offers both face-to-face and online delivery formats and different types of teaching positions to suit each teacher’s own particular situation.

The purpose of Sloan-C is to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale and breadth according to their own distinctive missions, 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 to improve online education in learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction.

For more information about UMUC’s Faculty Online Training Course, call 800-888-UMUC, or visit www.umuc.edu/faculty.

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