The WWW Journal for Online Education: Articles by WAOE officials and founders
Professor Steve McCarty
NEWS RELEASE
First published by the The Journal of On-line Learning and Technology (JOLT) Volume 1, Issue 1 (forthcoming July 1998).
World Association for Online Education (WAOE)
Educators concerned with online education in the broadest sense see their institutions cutting deals and their scholarly judgement over the curriculum undercut. Web-literate educators have their regional and disciplinary organizations, but when they reach out to the wider world through the Internet, they sense that the new medium holds great promise, but also that essentials are lacking in comparison to the face-to-face medium. Wandering from list to list, Website to Website, like so many nomadic masterless samurai, what online educators have been missing is a real organization. This need was realized at the Third Annual Online Conference based at the University of Hawaii, particularly the 7 April 1998 Keynote Address by Prof. Steve McCarty in Japan. As a result of continuing online discussions, 36 international Steering Committee members are preparing a Constitution and so forth to register in California as a non-profit organization. The World Association for Online Education or WAOE (pronounced "wowee") will be fully operational in new age media, evaluating online courses and resources in every branch of learning. With the cooperation of several universities already, a minimum of expenditures on material things, and the voluntaristic spirit of educators, dues are waived for at least the rest of 1998, and expertise can continue to be provided in lieu of dues. WAOE aims to be most global and accessible to non-Westerners and non-native users of English, promoting multilingualism and intercultural understanding. Focusing on online education since the advent of Web-based approaches, WAOE is working to turn online education into a new professional discipline. Please cite this journal announcement to colleagues, visit related Websites such as <http://www.waoe.org/communication.htm>, and register your interest or questions by e-mail to <waoe@waoe.org>.
Collegially,
Steve McCarty
(Full) Professor, Kagawa Junior College, Japan
<steve_mc@ws0.kagawa-jc.ac.jp>
<http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/presence.html>
Article I. Name and Nature of the Organization
Section 1. The name of this organization is the World Association for Online Education, hereinafter referred to as WAOE.
Section 2. WAOE is a not-for-profit organization of online educators and those concerned with developing online education in the broadest sense into a professional discipline.
Article II. Purposes
Section 1. WAOE is constituted as a professional association dedicated to advancing the development, implementation, evaluation and administration of online education, its technical and institutional support for practitioners, its dissemination as a discipline, its related technologies, needed skills and perspectives. For by this professionalization, online education can merit recognition as equally valid as pre-WWW approaches to sharing reliable knowledge, conducting specialized training, and certifying educational attainment.
Section 2. Reflecting the global potential of Internet technologies, WAOE fills the need for an organization of worldwide educators, one that is unencumbered by geography, physical travel, paper publications and other material means of production that must be subsidized by members. As world civilizations are becoming digitized, the WAOE organization itself can function entirely with digital technologies. As a global organization, WAOE upholds online education towards multilingualism and multiculturalism, preservation of human rights to diversity, mutual respect despite differences, and world reconciliation through intercultural communication among global citizens.
Section 3. WAOE aims to organize online educators globally in all fields of learning, to apply time-honored academic standards and ethics to new educational media, while serving the voluntaristic and professional needs of practitioners. WAOE thus aims to be as inclusive as possible in scope and in serving the aspirations of members. Inclusiveness therefore involves a global perspective with intercultural sensitivity, inclusive and equitable access to online education and to WAOE, both voluntaristic and professional activities, pan-disciplinary subject areas and issues, at all levels and in all types of true education. In all of these areas and more, WAOE serves the need for online education to become a professional discipline based on sound pedagogical principles and humanistic ethics.
Article III. Goals and Objectives
Section 1. WAOE promotes scholarly activities to systematically apply educational theories and research to online education, providing online communication forums, an electronic journal and other online publications.
Section 2. WAOE promotes the deserved enhancement of the professional status of online educators, technology specialists, and administrators implementing online education responsibly in terms of pedagogical principles and humanistic considerations.
Section 3. WAOE organizes assistance to practitioners in the conceptualization, planning, construction, administration, and evaluation of online instruction, as well as in the selection and use of academically reliable online resources in face-to-face courses.
Section 4. WAOE organizes ongoing asynchronous and synchronous communication channels by which members exchange ideas and engage in scholarly discussion of issues related to online education and its professionalization.
Section 5. WAOE develops World-Wide Web educational resources in various fields based at servers in various countries of the world. WAOE Websites provide information on sources of reliable knowledge or discussions in various fields of learning, with annotations and links to sites approved for research, and to educational programs partly or wholly online, reviewed for pedagogical effectiveness.
Section 6. WAOE organizes expertise on online educational issues, to guide the development of standards for online education, which in turn provide criteria for the evaluation, certification and accreditation of online learning programs. While basically being supportive of beginning practitioners and those with little choice but to offer elements of courses online, to defend the integrity of the online educational profession, WAOE attempts to rectify misinformation about the Internet and education, to condemn unsubstantiated claims and practices judged by relevant WAOE committees to constitute the misuse of educational technology for purposes ulterior to time-honored educational standards.
Section 7. WAOE provides channels for educators in similar fields or for interdisciplinary projects, whether the educators or students are in proximity or geographically distant, to join in collaborative and cooperative development and delivery of online courses and resources.