When you know better, you do better.
― Maya Angelou
As UMUC prepares to embark on an exciting new strategic plan with expanded goals for teaching and learning innovation, we have decided to sunset the DE Oracle @ UMUC in its current form. Although we will cease publication of the DE Oracle with this final December 2012 edition, you can continue to access the past articles, tutorials, and other resources on this site (www.deoracle.org) until June 2014. We are also working with our Information Library Services colleagues to preserve a number of historically significant articles in the permanent university archives so that faculty, administrators, and staff can reflect on UMUCs pioneering spirit, our own learning over the years, and our tremendous growth as a worldwide leader in distance education.
When the first edition of the DE Oracle was launched in 2001 by the Graduate Schools Distance Education Coordinators, online education was still in its infancy. At that time, Christina Hannah, then-Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (currently MBA Program Director), and Nicholas Allen, then-Provost and Chief Academic Officer (currently Provost Emeritus), recognized the critical need for cross-curricular teaching and technology support. As project champions, they played a critical leadership role in establishing the DE Oracle as the essential instructional technology resource for Graduate School program directors and faculty. Our readership grew, and the breadth of the content expanded to include tips for making the best use of UMUCs learning management systems features and external technology tools. Faculty also began authoring articles and sharing examples of successful classroom strategies with their peers in UMUCs burgeoning online teaching community. As the DE Oracle blossomed from a bimonthly e-zine to an information resource portal for faculty, we began including regular pieces from other academic support units of the university, including Information Library Services and the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Early version of the DE Oracle
In 2007, the DE Oracle was moved to an article management system that allowed members of the UMUC academic community to upload and submit articles directly to the e-zine for publication. From a site management perspective, this allowed the entire DE Oracle staff to easily work with all the articles from a single location. We leveraged this gain in efficiency to streamline site navigation and design, improve search engine results, and provide other improvements to the user interface. RSS feeds, ratings features, and the ability to comment directly on articles further enhanced faculty members ability to interact directly with the content.
Current version of the DE Oracle
After moving to UMUCs newly created Center for Support of Instruction (CSI), we expanded the scope of the DE Oracle to include topics and resources of special interest to The Undergraduate Schools stateside faculty and those teaching in Europe and Asia. And under the leadership of CSIs Director, Kathleen Puckett Ford, a new synchronous featureDE Oracle Livewas added, enabling faculty and staff who had prepared articles or tutorials the opportunity to further demonstrate and discuss their ideas with colleagues in real time using Wimba. The recorded Wimba sessions, along with the growing collection of informative articles, instructional resources, and technology tutorials, could be accessed by UMUCs worldwide faculty any time of the day or night, making the DE Oracle UMUCs one-stop shop for faculty teaching with technology.
Throughout the years, we have strived to provide current, relevant, and interesting articles, tips, and resources that could become part of ones teaching toolkit. We kept our ears to the ground, our eyes to the clouds, and our minds and hands in the online classrooms in search of timely information to share with faculty, a number of whom debuted their own working papers here in the DE Oracle and used it as a springboard for further research in effective and engaging online instruction. Our efforts to serve UMUCs faculty community were rewarded in 2009 when the DE Oracle won two awards from the IMS Global Learning Consortium: a bronze Learning Impact award and a Best in Category for Faculty Development Network award.
From the early days as a neat-looking Web site designed to deliver helpful content for graduate faculty to its growth as a mature, integrated resource portal and learning community showcasing our distinguished faculty members ongoing research interests across all aspects of teaching, the DE Oracle has succeeded in its mission to support effective online teaching and learning at UMUC. We have published 168 articles on 12 pedagogy subtopics, 44 articles on 10 WebTycho subtopics, 151 tutorials on 22 subtopics related to tech skills/software, and over 200 other miscellaneous resources ranging from multimedia/learning objects to information about various faculty workshops, academic awards won by UMUCs academic programs, and highlights on new approaches in specific academic programs and individual courses.
The DE Oracle would not have been a such a success without the help of all of the CSI staff, each of whom personally wrote and/or recruited forward-thinking content for the publication several times a year.
Deb Schroeder, the site manager, has been behind the DE Oracle since its inception. She not only led its original development but also its redesign several times over the years. Her roles included administering the various changing technologies and databases that supported the operation of the e-zine, overseeing the content submission process, and distributing each issue to all our readersin addition to providing a critical analysis/review of all content and ensuring a consistent design and layout of the publication.
Susan Pollack served as the editor for the last five years, meticulously reviewing all articles and tutorials to ensure that each piece communicated the right message to the audience. Her editorial hats included revising grammar and punctuation, writing style and tone, and organization and flow; conducting research; verifying citations; and anticipating readers questions that authors needed to address.
When Jack Boeve joined CSI late in 2011, he assumed the duties of assignment editor, a role previously held by our former colleague Linda Smelser. Each of them worked directly with authors to develop ideas for articles; researched potential topics and envisioned new directions and features; rigorously reviewed content for coherence and clarity; and stayed on top of everyones deadlines to ensure timely delivery of each edition.
It has been our distinct pleasure to work with so many exceptionally knowledgeable and talented faculty and staff here at UMUC who have contributed to the the steady stream of engaging and useful content published in the DE Oracle. On behalf of the entire CSI staff, we thank you for being part of this worldwide virtual community of practice, and we look forward to collaborating with you on exciting new ventures in the months and years to come.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Puckett Ford, Director
Deborah Schroeder, Site Manager
Susan Pollack, Senior Editor
Jack Boeve, Assignment Editor