Many traditions, one Alaska. That’s the slogan for the University of Alaska. With three urban universities in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, and a dozen rural community campuses, the university system serves students from a wide variety of regional cultures over the vast distances of Alaska. The enterprise deployment of Elluminate Live! began as a grassroots effort on separate campuses that quickly grew to provide university-wide infrastructure support. Here is their story from three unique perspectives.
The CIO: Community Up, Not Top Down
"We realized synchronous teaching isn’t for everyone, so there was no mandate for any of this. Our hope was to get the word out about a new synchronous teaching tool that the faculty would try out and embrace. Today, while 40% of our courses are in Blackboard, the adoption of Elluminate is 10-12%. While not as broadly used as Blackboard, Elluminate Live! is recognized as a very powerful tool by those who do use it."
Rich Whitney, CIO
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The IT Director: Many Needs, One Elluminate
"In one class, when students received a new assignment, they would arrange a specific meeting time to connect to do course work and get to know each other, the virtual equivalent of sitting around the lunchroom talking. The synchronous tool reestablishes the traditional university experience, especially when it’s deployed in a way that’s student initiated. That’s why we have to take Elluminate Live! out of the classroom and allow students to see and use it as they see fit as part of the student experience."
Michael Ciri, Director of IT Services
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The Tech Support Specialist: Mainstream Adoption
"People have responded by being incredibility creative in their approaches to using Elluminate. Mainstream faculty have stepped up to the plate and created distance courses that go so far beyond what they were doing in the past. I’m impressed with how receptive teachers have been to using all the features. Plus, Elluminate bumps up the level of student participation as a way to prepare them better for the future."
Chris Sturm, Digital Media Consultant
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About University of Alaska
The University of Alaska educational system spans three separately accredited urban universities in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, and includes a dozen community campuses, from Ketchikan in Southeast Alaska, to Kotzebue, in the state's far north. The system enrolls over 32,000 students studying among the 430 programs offered, including certificate and associate degree programs and bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.
