Michelle’s OLFPZ

Working my way through a number of “draft” items in my weblog. I found an article (about a year ago) that outlines the charactersitics of peer review software. This report is included in the University of Michigan’s University Library Scholarly Publishing Office website, authored by Kam Shapiro:

Bibliography and Summary: Electronic Peer Review Management

I’m not sure what the date on this report is… However, the information is still quite useful…

The office itself looks quite interesting, described in their own words below. The latest info on the web site seems to be from 2002, so I am not sure if the office is still in place.

The University Library’s new Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) has tools and methods for the electronic publication and distribution of scholarly content. The office supports the traditional constructs of journal and monographic publication in an online environment, as well as publishing scholarly work expressly designed for electronic delivery. SPO also monitors campus concerns and questions concerning electronic publication and dissemination of scholarship and works to address those concerns, both through appropriate venues for discussion and in building services.

We had our first Teaching and Learning with Technology Seminar for 2005 yesterday. Laura Sederberg, the Manager of the Technology and Learning Program at Cal State Chico talked with us about the subject, “Evaluating Online Instruction”, where she outlined the history behind, and gave an overview of CSU Chico’s Rubric for Online Instruction.

I enjoyed that seminar on a number of levels.

1> Laura is an engaging speaker; her enthusiasm for the subject, her genuine love of working collaboratively with faculty, her concern for those who support faculty and deep experience in this field come blazing though regardless of the delivery mechanism.

2> The content… wow! I am somewhat humbled by what they accomplished. 20 faculty, students, and staff collaboratively getting together and developing an evaluation rubric to apply to online courses – that they agree on! Kudos to them! And to have a formal method of recognizing faculty for their efforts on top of that is also impressive. You can learn about this effort at the following URLs:

• The CSU Chico Technology & Learning Program’s web site – Exemplary Online Instruction Awards and the Rubric for Online Instruction – this gives background info and more. Their web site in general is a full of all kinds of excellent resources related to online teaching and learning.
• Rubric for Online Instruction Web Site – check out the example courses – the poster sessions are just amazing…

3> The delivery mechanism was something new for us. Laura gave the seminar via Horizon Wimba’s Live Classroom. That went really well – despite my own user errors and flaky wireless activity generating form my laptop. That was odd… but then I probably generate a strange electrical field that shorts out most things….

I’m looking forward to playing with that some more.

We’ll be putting up the archive of the session soon, but if you are interested now… Laura gave a talk with one of the faculty members who recieved an award earlier this year in one of Horizon Live’s Desktop Lecture Series.