THE SLOAN FOUNDATION UNVEILS A CATALOG OF ONLINE EDUCATION PROGRAMS - The Sloan Foundation has announced a new online catalog of degree and certificate programs offered by universities, colleges, and community colleges who are members of its ALN Consortium. While membership in the consortium is automatic for institutions that have received grant support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to teach and give degrees over the internet, it is also open to other institutions through a peer review process. The online catalog enables visitors to the website to search for programs by discipline area, credential offered, institution or by custom search criteria. For further information, and to view the catalog, go to the Sloan website and CLICK: http://www.sloan-c.org/catalog/index.cfm (E-News from UCEA, No. 28, 28 June 00)

ONLINE WORKSHEET FIGURES THE COSTS OF DISTANCE ED PROGRAMS - The director of the Center for Instructional Technology at West Virginia's Marshall University has devised an interactive worksheet to help administrators calculate the price of creating a distance education program. The site asks users a dozen questions about their institutional environments and strategies for distance ed, then generates a spreadsheet with cost and revenue projections for the first seven years of their online program. Users can alter variables and get new estimates to test different scenarios. The site does warn that its calculations provide only rough estimates and users should verify figures independently. The worksheet also doesn't take enough factors into account, such as the fact that the computing infrastructure for online courses can also be used to enhance traditional courses. Nevertheless, it's a starting point for first-timers. (Chronicle of Higher Education 8 June 00) For The Chronicle CLICK: http://chronicle.com/free/2000/06/2000060802u.htm (Eduprise/Need-to-Know, June Ð email: eduprise@ijs.co - Beth Archibald Tang)

WEB SITE PROVIDES ADVICE ON TEACHING IN CYBERSPACE - The Virtual Resource Site for Teaching With Technology, is one of the newest how-to guides for building virtual classrooms, developed by the University of Maryland University College and designed to be used by instructors anywhere. The site provides 40 examples of assignments or exercises used in online courses at various institutions. The examples are organized by type of technology used, as well as by type of learning activity, such as field trips, class presentations and case studies. Methods for teaching online include text-based methods, such as posting lecture transcripts, explaining concepts through interactive games and taking virtual field trips. Site creators say they want to encourage instructors to design their online courses with teaching objectives, rather than technical wizardry, in mind. The site provides links to other sites that offer step-by-step instructions. Bell Atlantic is supporting the site with a two-year, $30,000 grant. A second section of the site, which will further explore issues of online pedagogy, will be added by the end of the year. CLICK: http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu:8901/welcome/facdev101 and http://www.universityaccess.com (by Jeffrey R. Young CLICK: http://www.umuc.edu/virtualteaching/ - from jsmith@uwsa.edu, wislrntec@maillist.uwsa.edu)

WAOE - With the cooperation of volunteer educators in several countries, the World Association for Online Education (WAOE) Website has been renewed. Information on WAOE is available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, German, Russian, Estonian, Italian, French and soon Malay! The WAOE Website is now more of a portal with columns of text and links. Events are outpacing the news, with the Annual Members' Meeting empowered and soon likely to reform the organization. Thanks to affiliations, WAOE's dual mission as a membership organization and an NPO may be converging. Learn about the WAOE (pronounced "wowee") organization by checking out each of the main pages, following up on links of interest. CLICK: http://waoe.org/ (Steve McCarty - steve_mc@kagawa-jc.ac.jp Professor, Kagawa Junior College, Japan)