Written by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, experts in the field of online teaching and learning, this hands-on resource helps higher education professionals understand the fundamentals of effective online assessment. It offers guidance for designing and implementing creative assessment practices tied directly to course activities to measure student learning. The book is filled with illustrative case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that assess the quality of student learning rather than relying on the traditional methods of measuring the amount of information retained.

Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt, the most trusted online teaching experts, have completely updated and revised this classic to reflect changes in technology and advances in online teaching made in the last decade, in order to meet today's online learning challenges. The book continues to offer helpful suggestions for dealing with such critical issues as evaluating effective tools, working with online classroom dynamics, addressing the special needs of online students, making the transition to online teaching, and promoting the development of the learning community. Filled with numerous examples from actual online courses and insights from teachers and students, new topics include the open source movement, Web 2.0, Google groups, and topics for the K-12 sector.

The Virtual Student is an essential resource for online educators working with students in higher education and training settings. The authors offer an overview of the key issues of student online learning and provide a practical guide to working with online students. The book covers a broad range of topics including learning styles, multicultural issues, evaluation, retention, and the challenging problems of plagiarism and cheating.

The hiring, training, and evaluation of good online instructors are high priorities for online institutions, and increasingly, all colleges and universities. This book shows what it takes to develop a new instructor in order to promote excellent online teaching, describes the qualities of a good online instructor, and reveals how to evaluate online teaching. In addition, it includes illustrative models of faculty training for online teaching based on adult learning principles and best practices in faculty training and identifies how technology can be used to facilitate and enhance the training process. "The Excellent Online Instructor" is perfect for faculty developers, instructional designers, program directors, and other administrators tasked with developing new instructors or training experienced faculty for the online environment.

Building Online Learning Communities further explores the development of virtual classroom environments that foster a sense of community and empower students to take charge of their learning to successfully achieve learning outcomes. This is the second edition of the groundbreaking book by Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt and has been completely updated and expanded to include the most current information on effective online course development and delivery. A practical, hands-on guide, this resource is filled with illustrative case studies, vignettes, and examples from a wide variety of successful online courses. The authors offer proven strategies for handling challenges that include: * Engaging students in the formation of an online learning community.* Establishing a sense of presence online.* Maximizing participation.* Developing effective courses that include collaboration and reflection.* Assessing student performance. Written for faculty in any distance learning environment, this revised edition is based on the authors many years of work in faculty development for online teaching as well as their extensive personal experience as faculty in online distance education. Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt share insights designed to guide readers through the steps of online course design and delivery.