Research: Under a grant from the Worldwide Universities Network, the American Center for the Study of Distance Education is working on development of a virtual e-Learning Research Center in the United States that will parallel and coordinate with the activities of the UK e-Learning Research Centre. First steps include development of a network of researchers at WUN partner institutions in the US (Penn State-University Park; University of California-San Diego; University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; University of Washington-Seattle; and University of Wisconsin-Madison) and development of a collaborative research agenda at an invitational research symposium on November 11, 2004.

Professional Development Activities: On October 24, 2004, ACSDE and the Penn State World Campus sponsored an interview of two pioneers in distance education research, theory building, and practice: Professor Borje Holmberg and Professor Michael Moore. Penn State students, faculty, and instructional design staff members viewed the interview live.  A tape of the interview will be available at a later date.

On October 3, 2004, ACSDE director Melody Thompson and Penn State World Campus Director of Instructional Design and Development Larry Ragan offered a workshop at the 2004 Outreach Scholarship Conference entitled “Research Initiatives in On-line Faculty Engagement.”

Publications: ACSCE has published eight issues of DEOSNEWS this year, with articles on topics ranging from assessment to strategic planning.

Publication of a monograph on faculty workload issues in the online environment is planned for Spring, 2005. (For related reports see “Faculty Online Workload Research Project” and “Effective Workload Management Strategies for the Online Environment” at http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/researchreports.htm).

Evaluation: In June, 2004, ACSDE director Melody Thompson, in collaboration with Dr. Chere Gibson of the University of Wisconsin, conducted an evaluation of University of Maryland University College's Master's in Distance Education program.

To support a study of access to online postgraduate programming at US Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) partner institutions, ACSDE developed an inventory of online certificate and degree programs offered at Penn State-University Park; University of California-San Diego; University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; University of Washington-Seattle; and University of Wisconsin-Madison.  That inventory, entitled “Post-Baccalaureate Programs offered on-line at US Partner Institutions,” is available onthe WUN Web site at http://www.wun.ac.uk/elearning/index.html