You are invited to attend the UNL’s Independent Study High School (ISHS) graduation ceremony and reception which will be held on June 12th at 2:00 PM in the City Union Ballroom.

The commencement speaker will be Dr. Juan Franco (UNL Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs). ISHS students earn their diplomas throughout the year, and to date, 179 students from around the world have graduated this year. Please join the ISHS in congratulating our graduates!

Using Microsoft SharePoint, EE&O has developed an internal application to provide a centralized, dynamic interdepartmental repository of key documents, course status updates, and workflow visualizations. For each distance course that EE&O helps develop, there are many different collections of files, paper documents, check lists, spreadsheets, etc. residing on a number of desktop computers. A key advantage of this application will be to reduce documentation duplication, standardize documentation formats and terminology, and allow multi-user access to documents.

The SharePoint application uses workflows to automate parts of the course development process and uses email reminders and document templates. EE&O is currently conducting a two-week pilot test of the application. The pilot test simulates the life cycle of four test courses with different formats. Users are assigned tasks based on their roles in the course development process. After the pilot, we will solicit user feedback on user-friendliness, accuracy of information, functionality and completeness of the new system. The system will go live for the Fall semester.

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UNL students who will be spending their summers doing study abroad, engaging in research, or participating in internships are taking courses through the Summer Independent Study program. Classes began June 1 with over 600 students taking advantage of 66 different UNL courses. EE&O is always looking to add new courses to this program – this summer, faculty are paid on a per-student basis ($261 per student). For more details, talk with Debbi Wicks at 472-1361.

Since EE&O’s web store system went “live” on July 1, 2008 we have processed 2,247 transactions (registration for courses, material sales, etc.) with a total value of $1.4 million. Enhancements to the web store continue. In the next few months we will tighten the integration of the web store processing with our CRM system. Projects are planned to integrate the system more efficiently with our high school’s student information system (THESIS) and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the user interface for both our customers and our customer service staff.

Throughout this time, faculty explore the process of developing and teaching online courses and experience being a student in an online environment. They also complete their Blackboard certification training, learn about copyright in online environments, hear from and interact with experienced distance faculty, explore ways to manage their time when teaching online, hold lively online discussions on key issues in planning and developing distance courses, and build their distance courses (or parts of their courses).

This year, participants are receiving an up-close view of several free web 2.0 tools—applications that are interactive and ubiquitous in nature. During one web conferencing session, Google Docs, RSS Feeds and Adobe Connect were demonstrated as excellent collaboration tools to use in online courses.

A new feature for SIOT was an investigation of Facebook and other social networking tools as options for building community online. At the opening session, Dr. Gina Matkin, Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications demonstrated how she and her students used Facebook this past year. Then, faculty participants joined the Summer Institute 2009 Facebook Group to learn what it is like to use Facebook and to consider how they might want to incorporate such social networking tools into their online courses.

Academic Conferences will be hosting the following three conferences this month (for more information on these and other conferences, seminars and programs, please visit their web site at:  http://conferences.unl.edu/)

Annual Heartland Regional Conference on Aging: New Approaches to Aging Communities
June 2-June 3
The conference is designed to bring people together to address issues impacting the aging sector from now to 2030.  Decisions made today will set us on a course for eventual success or failure about healthy aging in our communities between now to 2030. The Annual Heartland Regional Aging Conference will address healthy aging as an important emerging community issue. The conference will also address aging in place options and its importance to both the community and senior.  The conference will focus on new approaches to aging communities through addressing action, benefits, and choices in developing successful Aging Communities. 

Annual Immigration/Emigration Human Services and Social Issues
June 16-17, 2009
The 2009 Annual Immigration/Emigration Summit will take place on June 16-17 on the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, East Campus, Hardin Hall. The 2009 Summit will address Immigration/Emigration Human Services and Social Issues.  The Summit is designed to engage educators, community leaders, senior political and university leaders, students, researchers, health professionals, educational administrators, policy makers, and others toward a dialogue on immigration and emigration. By uniting speakers and participants from diverse background, the summit is intended to strengthening collaboration among academics, communities, and leaders. The summit will raise awareness and address regional and national concerns regarding economic, educational, women, youth, housing, health, language, political representation, race relations, criminal justice, etc.

The 12th International Cather Seminar 2009 - Cather, Chicago and Modernism
June 24-28, 2009
This seminar will be held on June 24 – 28, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois at the downtown ‘University Center’. The Seminar is sponsored by the University of Nebraska –Lincoln and the Cather Foundation. The seminar will present a wide range of papers that establish connections between the full range of Cather’s work and modernism/modernity.  The seminar will focus on Willa Cather’s relationship to broader formations of cultural and literary modernism.   Areas to be explored include but not limited to: How, and in what ways, is Cather a modernist (if at all)?  To what extent did she also resist and reject the “modern”