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July 30, 2007
2007 R1edu Award for University Faculty Contributions to Online Learning Announced
Innovative course in Renaissance literature aids students in learning to interpret complex and multi-layered texts
- 2007 winner announced
- About the R1edu consortium
- About the R1edu Award
- Past recipients of the R1edu Award
- About UW Educational Outreach
2007 winner announced
The 2007 R1edu Award for Distinguished Faculty Contributions to Online Learning has been presented to Professor Jan Miernowski at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Presented annually, the R1edu Award acknowledges innovative and stellar work of faculty in online learning at member institutions of the R1edu consortium, an organization of top U.S. research universities.
Professor Miernowski, a faculty member in the department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, created a highly innovative course, "French and Italian Renaissance Literature Online." He developed a full multimedia offering that helps students develop skills in reading and interpreting literary texts in their cultural and historical contexts. Features include multimedia lectures, printed text readings, interactive online reading assignments, a discussion forum and a weekly essay. Exercises, both graded and non-graded, provide students with immediate feedback. The course design simulates a journey through Renaissance Italy and France led by a group of faculty guides and mentors.
Contrary to many online courses, the class does not aim primarily at transferring a large amount of data over the Internet. Instead, it employs the unique strengths of online presentation and the latest interactive tools to train students in advanced interpretation of artistically complex and ideologically multi-layered texts. Special features include guidance to specific passages in the text, clues to unravel the hidden meanings and immediate and continuous feedback at every step. This interactive reading instructional strategy—what Professor Miernowski calls "e-intertextuality"—can be easily adapted to any course aimed at teaching students to interpret structurally sophisticated and culturally challenging texts. Professor Miernowski sees application to other disciplines including literary studies, history, philosophy, cultural studies, communication, film studies, history of art and more.
Currently, Professor Miernowski is exploring collaborative relationships with other professors to develop an authoring tool kit that enables the production of interactive reading activities by instructors who have little background in online learning design.
"We were impressed with the high quality of Professor Miernowski's program and its innovative use of online interactive features," said Dave Szatmary, Vice Provost, University of Washington Educational Outreach and founder and coordinator of R1edu. "Even more so, by developing a new model that can be applied to enhance learning in many other fields, Professor Miernowski has advanced the conceptual underpinnings of online learning as a whole."
See more information about the course.
About the R1edu consortium
Founded in 1999, R1edu is a consortium of more than 30 top U.S. research universities that pool their resources and knowledge to provide access to distance learning classes and reference materials. The consortium's Web site allows students to search classes and programs by subject, type or institution. Participating institutions are members of the Carnegie Foundation and of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
About the R1edu Award
Past winners of the R1edu Award for Distinguished Faculty Contributions to Online Learning have come from the University of Florida, the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, Iowa State University and the University of Missouri–Columbia.
The criteria for the R1edu Award are as follows:
- A faculty or instructor must contribute significantly to online distance learning by either:
- creating a new online distance learning program
- leading a department into the distance learning arena
- leading faculty toward a greater understanding and implementation of distance learning efforts
- creating an innovative distance learning policy, procedure or infrastructure for the campus
- The faculty/instructor innovation must occur during the 12-month period, May–April, leading up to the current year's award application deadline
- The distance learning effort should contribute to the work of a research institution
- The distance learning innovation should be aligned with the leading technology
A call for nominations is issued by email to designated representatives of R1edu member universities in the spring. Contact Dave Szatmary, Vice Provost, University of Washington Educational Outreach.
Past recipients of the R1edu Faculty Award
2006
John Wedman, University of Missouri-Columbia
Dr. Wedman, director, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies in the College of Education, created the first fast-track online master's at the University of Missouri–Columbia. The one-year online program in Educational Technology offers condensed courses in an eight-week format.
2005
Craig Tapley, University of Florida
Dr. Tapley, professor, Warrington College of Business, served as a pioneer among faculty at the University of Florida. By restructuring course content and utilizing WebCT VISTA, he moved his class Web presence from "Web site as filing cabinet" to "Web site as virtual classroom," where context, community and collaborative learning enhance the student experience.
2004
Linda Ettinger and Jane Maitland-Gholson, University of Oregon
Ettinger, academic director, and Maitland-Gholson, associate professor, developed the online Applied Information Management (AIM) master's degree program at UO. This degree combines knowledge in management, business and visual communication with an awareness of technology and its global context. They also developed several online courses including "Teaching in a Virtual Environment," a course to educate faculty in best practices for successful online teaching.
Mamidala Ramulu, University of Washington
Dr. Ramulu secured funding from the Boeing Company to design and implement an online, interdisciplinary master's degree in manufacturing engineering. The professor of mechanics, materials and design in the UW College of Engineering developed four online courses and helped create a new online, real-time Web conferencing system that serves as a main instructional tool for the program. This online tool has wide applications for other types of programs and content areas.
2003
Douglas D. Gemmill, Iowa State University
Dr. Gemmill, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, created and developed the Systems Engineering Graduate Program at ISU. His achievement led to the development of other online offerings at the ISU College of Engineering.
Joe Mahoney, University of Washington
Dr. Mahoney, a professor with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, developed a new model for a distance learning program in Construction Engineering. The program, the first of its kind in the nation, allows engineers to pursue one of three certificates or to combine them toward a master's degree.
Stephen Muench, University of Washington
Muench, a graduate student in engineering, is co-developer (with Dr. Mahoney) of the Pavement Construction online course for the online Construction Engineering program, and is involved in the planning and instruction of future courses for that program.
2002
David Notkin, University of Washington
Notkin helped secure two major federal grants to develop online programs at the UW. He was the co-principal investigator for a $1.4 million grant from the Learning Anywhere Anytime Partnership at the U.S. Department of Education. That grant has developed four online certificate programs for Internet professionals in partnership with Prentice-Hall/Pearson, the Public Broadcasting Corporation and the World Organization of Webmasters. He also helped secure a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to develop an online Bachelor of Science in Computing and Software Systems.
2001
Ed Lazowska, University of Washington
Lazowska was instrumental in helping to create the UW Computer Science & Engineering Professional Master's Program, an evening/distance program for fully employed professionals utilizing Internet conference technology. He is also cited for his role in the Tutored Digital Video Instruction program for making UW introductory computer science courses available to community and technical colleges across Washington State.
About UWEO Educational Outreach
UW Educational Outreach is the continuing and professional education division of the University of Washington, the nationally recognized public research institution based in Seattle. Helping the schools, colleges and departments to administer evening master's degrees, certificate programs, distance and online learning, International outreach, English language programs and more, UW Educational Outreach is one of the largest and most highly regarded continuing and professional education programs in the U.S. (more information). UW Educational Outreach also coordinates R1edu, a consortium of top U.S. research universities that pool their resources and knowledge to provide access to distance learning classes and reference materials (more information).