Anytime, Anyplace Learning, Trustee Grants
| Babson College Babson Park, MA 02457 |
$205,000 |
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| With Foundation support, Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman of Babson College conducted 2003 and 2004 surveys of online education. They assessed enrollment levels and growth rates, attitudes of chief academic officers, and other related matters. The second annual survey, released in November 2004, reported that in 2004 about 2 million learners enrolled in at least one online course, up from 1.6 million reported as part of the previous year's survey. It confirmed the finding of the previous survey that a majority of academic officers believed online courses were of equivalent quality to traditional classes. The report is available on the Sloan-C website, www.sloan-c.org. The current grant will support the surveys of online education for another three years. Project Director: Elaine Allen, Associate Professor of Statistics and Entrepreneurship. | |
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| Council for Adult and Experiential Learning Chicago, IL 60603 |
$175,000 |
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| Prior Foundation grants to the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) have supported ALN degree programs for workers in the telecommunications and electric power industries. The first of these projects, now known as NACTEL (National Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning), involves CAEL and Pace University. Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and Frontier, as well as the key unions CWA and IBEW, are participants. Pace courses and degrees currently enroll workers in 40 states. The second project, EPCE (Electric Power Coalition for Education) is also managed by CAEL and ALN courses and degrees are provided by Bismarck State College in North Dakota. It is focused on education for the electric power industry. Each program enrolls about 2,000 students and is now self-sustaining. The current grant will enable CAEL to develop a coalition of industry participants for a similar project for the wireless industry and to make arrangements for determining a suitable curriculum for workers in this part of the telecommunications industry. CAEL will seek other funds to implement the project. The grant will also enable CAEL to bring additional companies into an existing nuclear power coalition and aim to enroll 800 to 1000 workers for the ALN courses and degrees under development at Bismarck State College for the nuclear component of the electric power industry. Project Director: Jo Winger de Rondon, Vice President. | |
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| Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Needham, MA 02492 |
$900,000 |
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| This grant renews support for a variety of activities, carried out at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, to strengthen mechanisms for disseminating knowledge about effective ALN practices and creating an effective community of ALN users. The online refereed Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks will continue to be published. The Center will be involved in developing the program for the annual Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) ALN conference. The Olin group will continue to have full responsibility for all aspects of the Sloan-C summer workshops. They prepare and distribute all books and other documents emerging from these meetings. They operate the Sloan-C website which contains ALN announcements, news, a catalog of Sloan-C degree and certificate programs, a section on Effective Practices, and a listing of members. They also create and distribute a newsletter (Sloan-C Views) to 6000 addressees, organize the Sloan-C reviews for the U.S. Army's continuing education eArmyU program, and operate the Sloan-C Speaker/Consultant service. The Olin group will develop their outreach work under the Sloan-C theme of "Quality with Scale and Breadth" and will add members to the Sloan Consortium. Areas to be emphasized include blending (a mixture of ALN and traditional learning), corporate e-Learning, and achieving institutional goals through ALN. Project Director: John R. Bourne, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. | |
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| Research Foundation of the City University of New York Albany, NY 12246 |
$1,000,000 |
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| In 1999, a Foundation grant funded a pilot project to initiate an ALN program at CUNY. The program was enlarged substantially with funds from a second Foundation grant received the following year. Since then, CUNY has delivered about 750 ALN courses to over 16,000 learners in the New York City area. About 60% of these courses are full ALN and the rest are "blended," i.e., mix at least half ALN with traditional classroom learning. Such blended classes, for example, may meet on campus just once a week instead of three times, with other activities left to be carried out online. They are particularly useful in urban environments where students are likely to be able to attend classes occasionally because of proximity to a campus, but have limitations imposed by work and family obligations. ALN allows CUNY students in one borough to connect with campuses and courses in other boroughs. It advances the objective of being able to assure incoming students that graduation in four years is possible for all by making course offerings available online in those cases where students are closed out of a section or need to make up courses but cannot enroll in traditional classes due to other obligations. This new grant will allow CUNY to involve more faculty members in their ALN efforts and will result in a larger number of available ALN courses. CUNY's ambitious goal is to have 25% of their 200,000 or so students enrolled in ALN courses (blended or full) within three years. Project Director: George Otte, Director of Instructional Technology, CUNY. | |
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| Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08901 |
$850,000 |
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| In 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $500,000 to New Jersey to explore the effectiveness of online learning for a small population of low-income working adults. About 125 women (average income $16,900) were accepted into the pilot project, each receiving a computer, Internet access, and a choice of online courses to improve their office skills. These women had many responsibilities, such as child-care, jobs, and home-making, and had little support for dealing with them. Many faced transportation problems. In spite of these handicaps, the results were surprisingly positive. Over 90% of the women stayed with the program, completing a number of courses each and upgrading their office skills. In some cases, full certification, such as a Microsoft Office User Certificate, was gained. Some have gone on to better jobs. Nearly all claimed that they could not have enrolled for traditional classroom courses because of their life circumstances. The pilot project demonstrated that the online approach permits access to education resources to many in this population who would otherwise be excluded, and that this population can achieve both high retention and effective learning, and in a cost-effective manner. A 2003 Foundation grant allowed Rutgers to stay involved in assessment of this project, to disseminate the results to other states, and to assist other states in getting similar efforts underway. This new grant will enable Rutgers to work closely with another group of states in implementing similar pilot efforts and to continue working with New Jersey to increase participation beyond the pilot level. Florida, Illinois, Maine, Wyoming, and Delaware are expected to participate and Kansas may also join the project. Rutgers will identify successful practices and offer detailed consultations with state leaders on implementation. Success of these projects in this handful of states and dissemination of findings through such channels as the National Governor's Association could result in widespread adoption of such an online program as a federal or state option for worker training and retraining. Project Director: Mary L. Gatta, Director of Research and Analysis, Center for Women and Work. | |
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| University of Illinois at Springfield Springfield, IL 62794 |
$1,210,000 |
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| This grant will enable the University of Illinois, Springfield (UIS), already a prominent user of ALN in their educational programs, to start a process aimed at converting their entire curriculum to ALN. They intend to set an example of what can be done at a public institution that is committed to ALN and how that can benefit the institution and the state. The three campuses of the University of Illinois, all recipients of Foundation grants, have been pioneers in ALN delivery and have made Illinois one of the two most ALN-intensive states in the country, the other being New York, on a per capita basis. UIS now envisions a future in which a number of comprehensive institutions (non-Ph.D. granting) will each operate a "mirror campus," i.e., an entirely online campus equivalent in every way to the brick and mortar campus. Students will be free to take classes in either campus and will be awarded degrees based on credits earned in either or both "campuses." With this grant, UIS will create another 8 fully online degree programs, doubling its total to 16 or 84% of their degree programs. The University will hire 30 new tenure-track faculty to teach in these new online degree programs, expecting by the academic year 2007/08 that 32% of total student enrollments will be in online courses. This is to be a fully self-sustaining operation. Following completion of this Foundation-funded project, UIS will use the new income stream to add additional degree programs to make available online all 19 degree programs it now offers. New faculty members will be appointed as needed. A full mirror campus is expected to be in place shortly thereafter, one that accounts for 50% of university enrollments, with faculty capable of teaching in either the classroom or in an online modality. Project Director: Michael Cheney, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. | |
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| The following grants were made from appropriations approved by the Sloan Foundation Board of Trustees to fund small projects for the ALN Program. | |
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| American Distance Education Consortium Lincoln, NE 68583 |
$45,000 |
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| For increasing minority representation at the annual ALN Conference in Orlando. Project Director: Janet Poley, President. | |
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| Hunter College of the City University of New York New York, NY 10021 |
$45,000 |
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| Support to represent Sloan-C by means of special sessions and representatives at conferences. Project Director: Professor Anthony Picciano, School of Education. | |
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| Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 |
$16,000 |
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| For a project on content analysis of ALN learner feedback. Project Director: Professor Karen Swan, Research Center for Educational Technology. | |
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| The League for Innovation in the Community College Phoenix, AZ 85048 |
$45,000 |
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| Support for the development at three community colleges of nine ALN courses in homeland security. Project Director: Stella Perez, Director of League Online. | |
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| Pace University New York, NY 10038 |
$45,000 |
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| For planning and development of a NACTEL-like program for the cable industry. Project Director: David Sachs, Associate Dean. | |
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| Research Foundation of State University of New York Albany, NY 12246 |
$15,000 |
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| Support for planning the establishment of a multi-campus ALN electrical engineering degree. Project Director: David Porush, Executive Director, SUNY Learning Environments. | |
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| Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08901 |
$44,000 |
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| Support for a conference emphasizing online training for entry-level workers. Project Director: Mary Gatta, Director of Research and Analysis. | |
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| Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ 07030 |
$44,000 |
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| Support for a one-day workshop to bring together corporate and academic online learning practitioners. Project Director: Robert N. Ubell, Dean, Online Learning. | |
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| University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL 60612 |
$45,000 |
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| Support to organize and host a small conference on blended learning. Project Director: Mary P. Niemiec, Executive Director, External Education. | |
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| Western Washington University Bellingham, WA 98225 |
$10,000 |
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| Support for a conference on remote access to chemistry laboratory tools. Project Director: Devon A. Cancilla, Director, Scientific Technical Services. | |
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| The following grants were made from an appropriation approved by the Board of Trustees for support of exploratory efforts to make New York City a leader in the use of asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) for anytime, anyplace learning. | |
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| College of Aeronautics Flushing, NY 11369 |
$25,000 |
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| Support for the development of two ALN Certificate programs. Project Director: Ray Axmacher, Director, Distance Education. | |
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| College of Saint Elizabeth Morristown, NJ 07960 |
$20,000 |
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| Support to develop a new ALN Certificate program. Project Director: William Alexander, Director of Academic Advancement. | |
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| Anytime, Anyplace Learning, Officer Grants | |
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| American Distance Education Consortium Lincoln, NE 68583 |
$40,000 |
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| Support for a series of electronic meetings for presidents and provosts on aligning institutional goals with ALN. Project Director: Janet Poley, President. | |
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| Council for Adult and Experiential Learning Chicago, IL 60603 |
$45,000 |
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| Support to launch an ALN program for the pharmaceutical industry. Project Director: Pamela Tate, President. | |
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| Graduate Center of CUNY New York, NY 10016 |
$45,000 |
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| Support to obtain project funding for training immigration representatives through ALN. Project Director: Mary Milton, Executive Director, NYC Distance Learning Collaborative. | |
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| New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ 07102 |
$35,500 |
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| To support the Institute's ALN research site for an additional 12 months. Project Director: Distinguished Professor Roxanne Hiltz, Department of Information Systems, College of Computing Sciences. | |
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| University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599 |
$30,000 |
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| Partial support of ALN certification in molecular diagnostics. Project Director: Professor Rebecca Laudicina, Department of Allied Health Services, School of Medicine. | |
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