MAN Digital Scholars ProgramMAN_Flier20013_diack.docMANDigitalScholars%20Program-Concept%202015.docx

DRAFT CONCEPT

Prof. Moustapha Diack, MAN Director and Southern University - Baton Rouge, LA 

Dr. Gerry Hanley, MERLOT CEO and California State University

Dr. Laura Franklin, Virginia Community College

Mr. Bob Bilyck, Director Lodestar Learning and   Metropolitan State University, Minnesota

About the MAN Digital Scholars Program

The MAN Digital Scholars Program will establish a community of faculty and graduate students who will be mentors, innovators, project leaders, and liaisons communicating the interests and innovations of educators in the area of education technology to the larger MAN community.  MAN Digital Scholars will be faculty and graduate student with discipline expertise in health education. They will share exemplary practices, brainstorm solutions with their counterparts on their campus and across the higher education in Africa, and develop and implement plans for sustaining the program. They will serve as an online professional network, create avenues for collaborative research and curriculum development, and act as a unified hub of educational technology resources and academic perspectives from faculty and graduate students across the MAN community.

The goals for the MAN Digital Scholars program are: 

• Transform teaching and learning opportunities within their institution through the increased use of online technologies, with particular attention to health education.

• Build engaged communities of practice for African/US faculty, staff, and students who champion using and sharing technologies that improve educational outcomes.

• Design educational Resources for the STEM disciplines

Evidence that the MAN Digital Scholars (MDS) program is succeeding will include:

1. Projects designed and implemented by the MDS’s and their communities of practice that support improved educational outcomes through the use of technologies.
2. An easy to use online directory of faculty, staff, and students who are identified as participating in the MDS communities of practice which can showcase their participation.
3. An easy to use online inventory of innovative projects that enables faculty, students, staff, and K-12 teachers to find and learn how others have used technologies successful to improve educational outcomes.
4. Pedagogical expertise, instrumental for the effective and efficient adoption of educational innovations, that is captured and available for sharing within the MDS open community
5. Publications and conference presentations on the scholarship of teaching with technology.
6. Involvement in creating a Global network of scholars in learning technologies and eHealth for development
7. number of resources developed by the scholars
8. number of institutions and faculty engaged by scholars

To support the MAN Digital Scholars, MERLOT, MAN and Lodestar will provide the following services:

1. Facilitate the growth and productivity of the MAN Digital Scholars community
2. In collaboration with the DA community, design and support of a MDS section of the MAN Teaching Commons which will be the focal website for publishing the activities and outcomes of the MDS projects.   The MDS program will leverage the CSU’s MERLOT digital library, MERLOT Content Builder to create eportfolios, and other open educational services to ensure the MDS projects and pedagogical expertise are easily discoverable, reusable, and reviewed.
3. In collaboration with the MDS community, MAN will collaboratively develop a schedule of virtual meetings and agenda that supports the progress of the DA community and program.
4. In collaboration with the MDS community, assess and report on the productivity and impact of the MDS program, including the identification of scalable successful strategies for improving the effectiveness and efficiencies of important student learning outcomes.
5. Provide LodestarLearning Software Licenses and training to enable scholars to develop multimedia resources for teaching and learning.

The MAN Digital Scholars will have responsibilities to support the success of the program, including:

Defining their objectives that will enable the MDS program and community to achieve its’ goals.  

Some possible objectives include:

1. • Mentor other MAN faculty and graduate students on becoming a MDS 
2. • Incorporate academic technologies into their courses
3. • Participation in the innovation projects
4. • Capture pedagogical expertise and sharing it online
5. • Serve as community liaisons representing the educational technology interests of faculty and students.
6. • Conducting research on the efficacy of the innovative technologies 
7. • Facilitating use of innovative technologies in K-12 in-school 
8. • Many other possibilities
9. • Meeting via virtual meetings with MDS colleagues to support the collaborative efforts and produce the outcomes.  
10. • Contribute to the MDS program’s roadmap for delivering various services, tools, and resources.
11. • Other