Introduction to the Special Issue: Select Papers Presented at the 2022 OLC Accelerate Conference and the 2023 OLC Innovate Conference

Patsy Moskal; Laurie Dringus

doi:10.24059/olj.v27i3.4107

Authors

Patsy Moskal University of Central Florida
Laurie Dringus

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v27i3.4107

Abstract

Every year, the Online Learning Consortium holds two flagship conferences: OLC Accelerate, held in the fall, and OLC Innovate, held jointly with MERLOT each spring. This past year, OLC Accelerate 2022, was held virtually November 1-2, 2022 and live, in Orlando, Florida, November 14-17, 2022. OLC Innovate 2023, was held virtually April 4-6, 2023 and live in Nashville, Tennessee, April 18-21, 2023.

The Online Learning Journal solicits research papers from those who have presented at the most recent OLC Accelerate and Innovate conferences for the annual September issue. In this special section, we feature three articles that showcase some of the research that is being conducted related to online and blended learning. Much of the work showcased at our conferences presents case studies and research from faculty and practitioners in the field. The growing focus on online learning due to the pandemic has resulted in many new models, approaches, issues, and applications being deployed to address instructional needs in the virtual classroom. These provide a valuable opportunity to examine how faculty and researchers are adapting their instruction to provide quality online learning across various institutions and disciplines.

Author Biography

Patsy Moskal, University of Central Florida

Patsy D. Moskal is the Director of Digital Learning Impact Evaluation for the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Since 1996, she has served as the liaison for faculty research of distributed learning and teaching effectiveness at UCF. Patsy specializes in statistics, graphics, program evaluation, and applied data analysis. She has extensive experience in research methods including survey development, interviewing, and conducting focus groups and frequently serves as an evaluation consultant to school districts, and industry and government organizations. She has also served as a co-principal investigator on grants including the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Gates-Foundation-funded Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC). She frequently serves as a reviewer for conferences and journals and also for Department of Education and National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR proposals. Patsy has co-authored numerous articles and chapters on blended and online learning and frequently presents on these topics. In 2011 she was named a Sloan-C Fellow in recognition of her groundbreaking work in the assessment of the impact and efficacy of online and blended learning. Patsy's most recent book, with co-authors, Dziuban, Picciano and Graham, Conducting research in online and blended learning environments: New pedagogical frontiers was published in 2015.