More than 600 people registered for the ninth annual IU Online Conference at the end of October. The conference theme, “A United Path Forward,” highlighted the collaborative efforts of campuses, schools, departments, and individuals in continuing to advance innovative online education at Indiana University.
Whitten and Iwama: Focus on collaboration
An introduction from IU President Pamela Whitten set the tone for the conference and underscored the administration’s support of online education. “Today,” she said, “we bring Indiana University to the world through IU Online. Our approach to online education focuses on collaboration. We bring together units and faculty from various IU campuses to share resources and expertise, ensuring we deliver top-notch academic experiences and seamless services to our online students.”
In a keynote address, Vice President for Regional Campuses and Online Education Ken Iwama also emphasized the benefits and possibilities of collaboration. His role, he said, will be to espouse a “value narrative” that underscores the ways collaboration benefits all parties and makes “the whole more valuable than the sum of the parts.” Faculty governance, he said, is the cornerstone of effective collaboration. To encourage and support faculty governance, the University Faculty Council has established an Online Education Subcommittee that will work alongside IU Online to develop collaborative program curricula and policies.
Other sessions also focused on the benefits of collaboration. In a session about IU Online’s 50-plus collaborative online programs, faculty program directors cited the advantages of getting to work with other professors in their field and of being able to offer otherwise unavailable courses to students at their campus. Kristyn MacInnis, director of programs in the applied health sciences, summed up the conference’s theme best, noting that such collaboration is “a value-add for both faculty and students.”
Spotlight on innovation
Innovation of all sorts was on display, as well. Faculty presented sessions that focused on such innovations as:
- Leveraging GenAI to create interactive simulations
- An interprofessional education course for facilitators of collaborative healthcare groups
- Using microcredentials and digital badging to empower student success
- Employing Quality Matters to create a high‐quality, student friendly course
- Optimizing discussions in online courses
- Integrating a zero-cost textbook into a finite mathematics course
- A novel grading strategy
The IU Online team provided updates about IU Online initiatives, student services, academic affairs, and the characteristics of current online students. In addition, IU Online students took the floor for a 45-minute session on the IU Online student experience.
Miss the conference? Want to revisit a discussion? All sessions of the 2024 IU Online Conference are available for viewing at IU Expand, Indiana University’s portal to professional education.