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eScholars

The Digital Campus eScholars program is a project-based professional development opportunity for faculty.

For a $2,500 stipend, participants are required to complete training sessions and participate in online or face-to-face discussions with their colleagues. With the help of an instructional designer, they are expected to complete a project (online course, hybrid course, or, for example, a multimedia course module) and report the results of their efforts at the university's  annual Conference on Excellence in Teaching and Learning. 

Projects completed by eScholars include the development of an online course; the use of Web 2.0 tools for presenting and organizing course materials; production of animated presentations by the founders of Sociology (in talk-show format); production of information literacy tutorials; and captioned interviews with professional signers concerning ethical dilemmas encountered when translating between signed and spoken English. 

The first cohort of eScholars (Spring 2008) was open to faculty members beginning to teach online who were required to complete:

  • four Blackboard training sessions
  • a workshop on Universal Design (accessibility)
  • a session on copyright
  • attend a semester long hybrid course with three face-to-face meetings with other eScholars.

The second eScholar cohort (Spring 2009) focused on faculty members with extensive online teaching experience. Our goal was the production of exemplary online instructional materials and the preparation of a cadre of faculty to serve as mentors to others.

"Education for a Digital World: Advice, Guidelines, and Effective Practice from Around the Globe" was used as the text, enhanced with relevant resources and experiences. The advanced eScholars explored the Blackboard Greenhouse award winning courses and completed Sloan-C online workshops. eScholars appreciated the opportunity to reflect on their own teaching practices, the direct, immediate, impact of the program on their own teaching, and, especially, the opportunity that eScholars provided for them to network with like-minded colleagues from other disciplines.