Director’s Message

WCET’s members continue to be the backbone of this organization. One of our members told me recently that he was amazed at the size of the footprint WCET has on the higher education landscape, considering the size of its staff. The reason for that is simple: it is all due to our member’s support. This organization was founded 16 years ago on the premise that institutions and organizations could accomplish much more if they worked together on common issues, instead of just competing with each other. WCET has carried that goal beyond our original vision for the Western U.S. to encompass colleges, universities, state agencies, and other organizations throughout the U.S. and in other parts of the world.

This year WCET began some new partnerships to create additional resources for members. Our partnership with members and a couple of outside organizations resulted in AdjunctMatch, a project to help colleges and universities connect with qualified distance-learning instructors. Partnering with a statewide university system allowed us to form the Center for Transforming Student Services (CENTSS), which assists institutions in evaluating the sophistication of the student services they offer online. A partnership with the Observatory for Borderless Higher Education resulted in an international benchmarking project, focused on the integration of information technologies and distance learning into overall campus operations; a white paper summarizing that project will be available in the coming year.

In addition, this year WCET adopted Thomas Russell’s No Significant Difference website. Our plans are to expand and further develop it as a robust resource on distance-learning research, as well as to make it more functional and searchable. We also relied on our expert members for a variety of webcasts this past year, on topics centering around the costing of technology and on educational practices that incorporate technology.

It continues to be a privilege to lead this amazing organization.

—Sally M. Johnstone, Executive Director, WCET