Online Learning Consortium Honors 'Effective' Practices

The Online Learning Consortium yesterday announced eight winners of its annual Effective Practice Awards. The honors reward "effective techniques, strategies and practices" that adhere to the consortium's five pillars of quality: access, learning effectiveness, faculty satisfaction, student satisfaction and scalability.

A brief guide to this year's winners, who will receive their prizes April 19 at the OLC Innovate conference in Nashville, Tenn.:

• Alexandra Pickett, Center for Online Teaching Excellence, State University of New York, for "Open SUNY 'Interested in Teaching Online?': A Large-Scale Online Faculty Readiness Resource."
• Lynn Brabender and Karen Vignare, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) -- Personalized Learning Consortium, for "Scaling Campus-Wide Advising Reform: Using an Online, Asynchronous, Video-Based Course to Guide Campus Leadership in Launching Comprehensive Advising Redesign."
• Laurie Beford, Lyda DiTommaso Downs and Melissa McDowell, Walden University, for “Peer Coaching for Remote Faculty.”
• Katherine Strang and Fran Reed, Walden University, for "Putting Theory Into Practice Using Simulation Scenarios."
• Taylor Kendal and Alex McDaniel, Metropolitan State University of Denver, for “The Agile Instructional Design Network and Course Design Xchange.”
• Bucky Dodd and Stacy Southerland, University of Central Oklahoma, Center for eLearning & Connected Environments, for “A Visual Language and Method for Designing Successful Learning Experiences.”
• Larisa Olesova and Susan Campbell, George Mason University, for "Mentoring University Faculty: The Cooperative Mentorship Model."
• Fawn Thompson, Boston University, for “Develop a Peer Review Practice to Meet Challenges, Improve Accessibility, Promote Collaboration, and Expand Expertise in Online Course Design.”