A number of efforts have emerged which seek to establish models to help in this regard. Planners intend to gather data to compare the costs of traditional classroom instruction with various forms of mediated instruction in an effort to describe which are most cost effective. These sessions will present various approaches to assessing costs and benefits in current and future technology-mediated courses and programs. Extending off-campus access to the NII and developing policies and practices for universal student access to information technology is fundamental to creating a national learning infrastructure. These sessions will present institutional strategies to increase off-campus access, the required institutional support structures, options for financing, examples of implementation approaches and other prerequisites for success.
Most campuses have units that provide general support to all faculty.
Others have combined this function with centers for teaching and learning. These sessions will present different models for establishing faculty development programs, including how to conceptualize such programs, how to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, what content to include, and how to identify strategic targets of opportunity for faculty development by linking programs to institutional priorities and academic goals. In this morning's sessions, track convenors will lead discussions with the goal of drawing lessons from the previous day's examples that transcend an individual institution's effort, highlighting successful strategies and identifying areas needing collective action. Among the issues we plan to deal with are creating incentives for change, overcoming barriers to success, identifying targets of opportunity and developing the necessary support structures. For each track, we suggest some recommended background reading.