Dr. Kelvin Thompson serves as an associate director for the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (http://cdl.ucf.edu) with a faculty appointment as a graduate faculty scholar in UCF’s College of Education & Human Performance, and he has collaborated on the design of hundreds of online and blended courses over the past sixteen years. Dr. Thompson oversees CDL’s strategic initiatives, including accessibility activities, and he developed the BlendKit Course open courseware (http://bit.ly/blendkit) as part of UCF’s Blended Learning Toolkit. His personal research interests center around how interaction affects learner engagement, and information on his Online Course Criticism qualitative evaluation model for facilitating the scholarship of teaching and learning in online and blended environments is available online (http://onlinecoursecriticism.com). Kelvin holds an EdD in curriculum and instruction and an MA in instructional systems technology from UCF and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Florida State University.

Linda Feng is currently a Senior Product Manager with Instructure, focused on Student Information Systems Integration and Analytics. Linda comes to Instructure with over 20 years of experience in database server and applications product development at Oracle – most recently serving as Software Architect in Oracle’s Student Products Division. Early in her career at Oracle, Linda successfully managed the development of Oracle’s Spatial Data Option technology, integrating it into the Oracle 7 server architecture. Her work with this project earned her a patent for multidimensional indexing techniques present in Oracle’s Spatial Cartridge today. Linda has also guided numerous application development projects ranging from Oracle Public Sector Financials to Oracle Student Systems. In the last several years, she served as co-chair of the IMS Global Learning Initiative Learning Information Services Working Group, helping to bring a new Enterprise interoperability standard to market.

I’m Jared Stein, and I work for Instructure, creators of the Canvas learning platform, where I strive to help people help teachers do more with educational technology.

Speaking of which, I’ve worked in the field of technology-enhanced education for about 15 years, spending much of my career at UVU as Director of the Innovation Center and Director of Instructional Design Services.

I also co-founded and directed the TTIX conference for five years.

There’s much more about me on my LinkedIn profile.

Dr. Pam Northrup is Senior Associate Provost of Academic Innovation and the inaugural CEO of the University of West Florida’s Innovation Institute. Dr. Northrup has spent her career engaged in transformative educational projects with the goal of solving some of education’s toughest challenges. Most recently, Dr. Northrup leads the Florida Virtual Campus as well as Florida’s legislatively funded degree completion initiative, Complete Florida where policy and best practice will emerge regarding competency-based education, prior learning assessment and reducing the cost of education. Dr. Northrup recently served on the Florida Board of Governors Task Force for developing the Online Education Strategic Plan 2025. Dr. Northrup also has engaged in many other transformative projects including the development of the National Flight Academy, a fully immersive game-based environment. Dr. Northrup publishes and speaks extensively with her most recent efforts focused on the development of systems that support transformational change. Dr. Northrup served as the Dean of the College of Educational Professional Studies for many years and prior to that, developed and led the University of West Florida’s distance learning model that now serves over 30% of the university’s student population.

Dr. Linda S. Futch is the Department Head for the Center of Distributed Learning (CDL) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Her duties cover instructional design, technical support for online courses and management of the course management system. Linda has been instrumental in guiding faculty development for online courses and developing systems to support faculty and students. She has developed curriculum and delivered instruction in business, high school, community college, and higher education. For her doctoral dissertation, Linda studied blended learning at a large metropolitan university and is currently studying the design of successful blended courses.

Dr. Karen Pedersen was recently selected as the Chief Knowledge Officer for the Online Learning Consortium. In this role, she has responsibility to gather, curate and leverage the intellectual capital created by and disseminated through the organization to create and enhance services and resources provided to constituents. She will lead work in five key areas including product development leadership, learning innovation, quality enhancement, community engagement and development as well as publications, research, and policy.

Prior to joining the Online Learning Consortium, Pedersen served as the Associate Vice President for Extended Campuses at Northern Arizona University. In this role she was responsible for leading a system-wide enrollment management transformation as well as managing marketing, technology, and academic operations. She led a network of over 35 campuses in Arizona, developing new business and market opportunities, actively collaborating with and growing community college partners and concurrent admission (2NAU) learners, as well as developing scalable, integrated and lean business processes/workflows. The scope of her responsibilities included coaching and mentoring 140+ full-time staff members, 40 part-time staff members, including a growing number of student workers. In addition she was responsible for supporting over 750 full and part-time faculty members. In Fall 2014, Extended Campuses realized a 5% year-over-year increase in overall headcount across its statewide operations and a 16% increase in its online headcount (with a 27% increase in online credit hours generated).

For eleven years Pedersen served as the Vice President for Professional Studies at Southwestern College (Kansas). In that role she was responsible for envisioning and building an online program from the ground up (including seeking regional accreditation approval) and launching over 25 innovative online programs. Additionally, Pedersen had responsibility for expanding military partnerships, engaging in strategic infrastructure projects, as well as positioning the institution in an enrollment growth trajectory. Southwestern College participated in the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) through its regional accreditor (The Higher Learning Commission) and Pedersen participated in two strategy forums during her tenure. In addition, she served as an evaluator with the Kansas Award for Excellence and utilized the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence in her operations. She was responsible for managing a $3.9 million operating budget and an $11.8 million revenue stream, growing the revenue generated by nearly 500% during her tenure.

Pedersen also held the academic associate and dean roles at Upper Iowa University’s Extended University for four years. In these roles she was responsible for curriculum development, supporting academic issues, learner success, as well as faculty hiring, training, and evaluation. She also built the foundations for an online operation and traveled internationally to develop partnerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

Prior to starting her administrative career, Pedersen served as a faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Pedersen holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a doctor of philosophy degree from Oklahoma State University. She currently serves as an associate consultant for DemandEngine supporting enrollment management consulting projects. In the past two years, she has also worked collaboratively with the Indonesian National Police and the US Department of Justice to provide professional expertise for a major distance education initiative.