Personnel
by Sloan-C Team| Operations | Board of Directors |
Operations | |
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President
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![]() | A. Frank Mayadas. Ph.D. At the Sloan Foundation, Dr. Mayadas is involved in a number of areas: online education, globalization of industries, industry studies, and career choice in technical fields. He started the Sloan online learning program in 1993. This program (known as Asynchronous Learning Networks or ALN) has had a profound impact in moving the field forward. Members of the Sloan Consortium now number over 1400. Dr. Mayadas has been a keynote speaker at several distance education conferences and has testified before Congress on web-based learning.
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![]() | Executive Director, Ex-Officio member of the Board - |
![]() | Chief Information Officer and Survey Director
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![]() | Chief Learning Officer Janet C. Moore, Ph.D. is the Chief Learning Officer for the Sloan Consortium. She is an editor for the Sloan-C View, the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, effective practices, and annual volumes in the Sloan-C quality series. She participates in various initiatives, including helping design and conduct Sloan-C workshops and seminars, and Sloan-C Catalog reviews. She is the author of Elements of Quality: The Sloan-C™ Framework, Pillar Reference Manual. |
![]() | Director of Technical Operations
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![]() | Director of Publications Kathryn (Katie) Fife is the Publishing Manager for Sloan-C. She manages the publication of the Sloan-C View, and the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, as well as the annual book series on quality, workbooks, and special publications that result from Sloan-C activities. She has experience from her years in the publishing industry prior to joining Sloan-C and holds a BA from Tufts University in anthropology and Spanish. |
![]() | Associate Executive Director
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| Marketing and Publications Coordinator Joanna Tong works with both the marketing and publishing aspects of Sloan-C. She graduated with a B.S. in Marketing from Bentley College in Waltham, MA. Prior to joining Sloan-C, she was the Marketing Assistant for the Boston General Office of New York Life Insurance Company. |
Customer Service Coordinator
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Events Producer
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Events Producer
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| Effective Practice Editors (Effective Practices Website) | |
| Karen Swan (B.A., Philosophy, UConn.; M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, Keene State College; Ed. M., Ed. D., Columbia University, Instructional Technology) is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice and the Director of the Learning Technologies Laboratory. Her research has been primarily in the area of educational computing environments-namely, Logo programming, Integrated Learning Systems and hypermedia-on which she has published widely. She is also interested in social learning from broadcast video and has edited a book on that subject with Dr. Carla Meskill. Dr. Swan has published two interactive video disk applications-The Multimedia Sampler for IBM and Set on Freedom: The American Civil Rights Experience for Glencoe. Dr. Swan is currently a project director for the technology and literacy research strand of the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) . |
| Tana Bishop is the Associate Dean for Administration in the Graduate School at University of Maryland University College. Prior to that, she was Assistant Director for the United Kingdom and Iceland with UMUC's European Division. She also worked in Japan as the Executive Director of the Navy Relief Society, a non-profit financial institution. Other professional experience included many years as an educator. She spent more than a decade living and working outside the United States. That international experience has influenced her interest in offering synchronous courses and degree programs to diverse student populations. Dr. Bishop holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Japanese Studies and a Ph.D. in Education. Her areas of specialization include the economics of education, educational leadership, and international teaching and learning. She currently serves as President of the Maryland Association of Higher Education. |
| John Sener is the founder of Sener Learning Services, a consulting practice which focuses on supporting the evolution of online and other technology-enabled learning environments in higher education institutions and consortia, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. He is also involved in a wide variety of Sloan-C activities and initiatives, including serving as Director of Special Initiatives and coordinating the Speakers and Consultants Bureau. He has been on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks since its inception and is a Contributing Editor for the monthly newsletter Educational Pathways. While at Northern Virginia Community College, he directed development of distance and online-accessible associate degrees in engineering, information systems technology, public management, and business management. His career in education and training over the past twenty-five years includes directing a number of foundation and federally funded projects; he has also been a trainer, teacher, administrator, instructional designer, and tutor in the areas of adult literacy, basic skills, information systems, and English as a Second Language. He holds a M.S. degree in Education from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Psychology from Oberlin College. |
| Melody Thompson is Assistant Professor of Education in Penn State's College of Education. In that role, she teaches and advises masters' and doctoral students in the Adult Education Program, with much of her teaching being done online through the Penn State World Campus. She is also the US project leader for the e-Learning Collaborative Research Project of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). Her primary research interests are faculty satisfaction and the institutional policy environment for online learning, as well as diversity issues in adult education. Dr. Thompson's past positions include Director of Planning and Research for the World Campus and Director of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education (ACSDE). Dr. Thompson has lectured nationally and internationally on topics related to adult and distance education. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, as well as co-author of the McGraw-Hill Handbook of Distance Learning. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Open Learning, Journal of Continuing Higher Education, and Adult Education Quarterly, among others. In 2003 she received the Sloan-C Award for Faculty Satisfaction for the Faculty Self-Study Research Project. She is a member of the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education and Phi Kappa Phi honor society. |
| Peter Shea is an assistant professor in the department of Educational Theory and Practice with a joint appointment in the College of Computing and Information at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Previously he served as the Director of the SUNY Learning Network, the multiple-award winning, online education system for the State University of New York. Peter has also served as manager of the SUNY Teaching, Learning, and Technology Program and as Project Director in the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT), as well as a SUNY representative to the EDUCAUSE National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII – now ELI). Peter’s current research focuses on the student and faculty experience in technology-mediated teaching and learning, most recently on the topics of “teaching presence” and community in asynchronous learning networks. He is the author of many articles and several book chapters on the topic of online learning, co-author of the book, “The Successful Distance Learning Student” (Thomson-Wadsworth) and a contributor to the recent book, “Learning Together Online, Research on Asynchronous Learning Networks” (Erlbaum). He is a co-recipient of several awards including the EDUCAUSE Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning for the State University of New York, and two Sloan Consortium Awards for Excellence in Faculty Development and Asynchronous Learning Networks Programs. He is a member of the American Educational Research Association and the editorial board for the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. His research has appeared in the Journal of Educational Computing Research, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, and the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks among others. |
| Sloan-C Research Specialists | |
Christine Geith, Ph.D. Christine Geith leads business strategy, product development and financial management as director of MSU Global at Michigan State University. She is a founder and co-executive director of the award-winning Horticulture Gardening Institute at MSU. Prior to joining MSU, Dr. Geith was executive director of eLearning at Rochester Institute of Technology where she was instrumental in launching one of the first online degree programs in the U.S. in 1991. An Arena Award recipient from the Center for Digital Education and senior associate of the TLT Group, Dr. Geith holds an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology and Ph.D. in education administration, curriculum and instruction from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. | |
Stephen Schiffman, Ph.D. Stephen Schiffman has served in faculty and dean positions at Babson College since 1986. Under his leadership as Dean of the undergraduate program, Babson College received the 2002 Hesburgh Award for reinvention of undergraduate business education. Stephen’s research interests include entrepreneurship and the business issues of online education. His previous experience includes positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, Colorado College and University of Colorado-Boulder. Dr. Schiffman holds an M.S. from MIT in management and a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College in mathematics. | |
Karen Vignare Karen Vignare is Director of MSU Global Ventures. She is responsible for growing globally accessible, innovative online customized professional development programs like the award winning Horticulture Gardening Institute. Karen joins MSU Global most recently from the Rochester Institute of Technology where she served as a Senior Research Analyst in Online Learning. Before RIT, Karen was an Assistant Professor for Retail, Marketing and Business Technologies at the State University of NY, Alfred. Her career began on Wall Street where she served as a Vice-President and Research Analyst for Political Economics. She is on the Advisory Board of National Telecommunications University Network and the editorial board of EdPath and Distance Education. Karen Vignare has an M.B.A from the Simon School at the University of Rochester and is currently enrolled in doctoral courses at Nova Southeastern University in Computer Technology for Education. | |
Linda Enghagen, J.D. Professor Enghagen teaches cyberlaw at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and developed a corporate training program entitled Information Technology and the Law: Software, the Internet and E-mail in conjunction with the PBS Business & Technology Network. Her scholarly contributions related to intellectual property are directed to the needs of faculty members. Her publications include two books, Technology and Higher Education: Approaching the 21st Century and Fair Use Guidelines for Educators, as well as numerous articles such as Fair Use in an Electronic World and Copyright Law and Fair Use—Why Ignorance Isn’t Bliss. She also developed a pamphlet entitled Educators, Technology and the Law: Common Questions/Direct Answers and a brochure entitled Legal Literacy in the Information Age—Ten (easy to understand) Rules of Thumb. In addition, she has been a guest commentator on a local NPR affiliate where she discussed copyright piracy in a piece entitled Napster Worries Me. | |
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