... From the Editors
A letter from the editors of the Sloan-C View

For faculty teaching online, Melody Thompson, Sloan-C editor for faculty satisfaction practices, finds that interacting with new populations of students is a primary motivator for ongoing faculty satisfaction. This issue of the View focuses on some of the ways online learning can enhance more diverse kinds of learning for more online learners.

In “Two Worlds,” John Bourne points out that academic and corporate learning have been maturing in parallel universes; now it ’s time to share accumulated knowledge to benefit both worlds.

Jeff Seaman’s analysis of student satisfaction asks readers to consider why lower SAT scores correlate with higher levels of satisfaction with online learning. Clearly, satisfaction can have a great deal to do with quality standards that accommodate various kinds of learners. To enable more kinds of learners to succeed in learning online, Seb Schmoller announces a draft for public comment on the British Standards Institution’s “Code of practice for e-support in electronic learning systems." The draft includes useful recommendations for supporting learners in online tutorials, a/synchronous, and hybrid delivery modes; email David.Keech@bsi-global.com to obtain the draft. The International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) announces the launch of its international standards agency, and calls for papers for its annual conference in Hong Kong, June 1—5.

Online, you can access and provide practices that measure up to the standards of the Sloan-C quality pillars by demonstrating affordability, replicability, and impact, like the featured practices from Bill Pelz and Carol Hayes in this issue. Also, see reviews of current publications of interest.

As budgets shrink and demand increases, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation encourages initiatives to enable greater access to quality learning. These mainstay words help:

The greatest thrill that life offers is to create, to construct, to develop something useful. Too often we fail to recognize and pay tribute to the creative spirit. It is that spirit that creates our jobs. There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different.
Alfred P. Sloan

As always, your thoughts about how Sloan-C can best become your source for networking with online providers are most welcome. Please register and login to view Sloan-C resources at http://www.sloan-c.org.