Marshall A. Hill is Executive Director of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), which provides a voluntary, regional approach to state oversight of postsecondary distance education. His involvement with SARA spans work with the Presidents’ Forum/ Council of State Governments drafting team, the development of SARA agreements with the country’s four regional higher education compacts, and membership on the National Commission on Regulation of Postsecondary Distance Education.

John is the Platform Analytics and Educational Research Director at Blackboard, where he leads the development of cross-application Learning Analytics for students, instructors, and administrators. These analytics provide insights into how students and faculty interact with educational technology applications, the fit/gap between product design and use, and the educational outcomes resulting from those interactions.

Prior to joining Blackboard in 2014, John managed large-scale distributed educational technology projects for the California State University, California Community Colleges, and an NSF-sponsored research consortium. John is also an applied researcher with published studies in Learning Analytics and MOOC effectiveness research, and currently serves on the Educause ECAR working group on Predictive LMS Analytics. He holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from UC Davis and a Master’s Degree in Sociocultural Anthropology from UC Davis.

Angie Besendorfer currently serves as Chancellor of WGU Missouri. Previously she served the students of Joplin as Assistant Superintendent. She has served students in the field of education for over twenty years in Missouri schools as teacher, elementary principal, professional developer, director of special services and superintendent. She has received several honors including the National Milken Educator Award and Finalist for Missouri Teacher of the Year. Angie holds a Bachelor’s degree from Missouri Southern State University, a Master’s degree from University of Central Missouri, and an Educational Doctorate from University of Missouri Columbia. Her passion for public education is evident in all of her endeavors.

Devon Cancilla is the Vice Provost of Online and Distance Learning at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) where he works with various divisions within UMKC and the UM system to promote, support and develop online programs. Prior to this, he served as Dean of Business and Technology and was an Associate Provost for Learning at American Sentinel University. Dr. Cancilla was the Director of Scientific Technical Services and an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Western Washington University where he researched the development of online laboratories through the NSF funded Integrated Laboratory Network (ILN) initiative. Dr. Cancilla received the John R. Bourne Award for Outstanding Achievements in Online education and an Effective Practice award from the Sloan-C (now the OLC) for his work in online science education. Dr. Cancilla continues to promote the use of online science programs with a particular interest in crowdsourcing, citizen science and data driven approaches to online science education.

Kathleen S. Ives, D.M. has worked in online technology for over 20 years and is currently the Online Learning Consortium’s Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director where she oversees the organization’s strategic direction. Dr. Ives assumes this leadership role after serving as interim CEO and Executive Director since October 2013. Additionally, she serves as faculty for the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (sponsored by Penn State and OLC) and on the Leadership Advisory Board for the Center for Learning Innovations & Customized Knowledge Solutions (CLICKS). Formerly, Dr. Ives oversaw all forms of alternative instruction at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, MA (distance learning, accelerated programming). She serves as adjunct faculty for University of Phoenix, Denver-based American Sentinel University, and Bay State College in Boston. Dr. Ives began her career at CBS and helped to develop the service that evolved into Prodigy. She then spent fourteen years designing and implementing consumer online information services, first at AT&T and then at Verizon where she spearheaded the development of the nation’s first online Yellow Pages product, now called superpages.com. Dr. Ives has degrees in communication, communication management, and organizational leadership from the University of California at Davis, the University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Communication, and the University of Phoenix-Online, respectively.