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

This issue looks at business issues and marketing tips that relate to the Sloan-C quality pillar of cost effectiveness.

• In “Cost Analysis: A Valuable Decision Support Tool,” Christine Geith, Director of Michigan State University Global Ventures gives an overview of activity based costing.

• In “Business Issues in Online Education,” Stephen Schiffman, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Olin and Babson Colleges, summarizes some findings from a forthcoming report on interviews at eleven major providers of online programs.

• In “Marketing Online Programs - We Are All Marketers,” Keith Bourne, Sloan-C Director of Marketing, provides some insights from a recent Sloan-C online seminar on marketing online programs.

• In “Hot off the Blog,” Ray Schroeder of the University of Illinois at Springfield rounds up news related to business and marketing.

In other news, Florida State University announces four online programs in the Sloan-C Catalog. Many thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Services Center for sharing its free online training on conducting needs assessment, and to WGBH for its free online multimedia resources for science teachers. Congratulations to Sheffield College, winner of the 2004 Beacon Award for its course, Young People Speak Out. Please share your resources for the community in the Sloan-C effective practices collection, and for a wealth of downloadable information, please use the Sloan-C free resources page.

For 2005, Sloan-C plans a series of online workshops on topics such as copyright compliance, engineering education, virtual worlds, online pedagogy, blended learning, business issues and more. Sign up here to be notified of new events.

… for the Sloan Consortium

Frank Mayadas, John Bourne and Janet Moore

The purpose of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is to help learning organizations continually improve the quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines. You are welcome to join Sloan-C:
http://www.sloan-c.org