National Award Recognizes Stanford Center for Professional Development's Distance Learning Emerging Technology.

STANFORD, Calif. -- Stanford University's Center for Professional Development (SCPD) today received the 21st Century Best Practices Award for Distance Learning from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) for its innovations in the online delivery of academic and professional education courses to students in industry and government.

"Stanford is committed to finding innovative ways to extend the teaching and research of its faculty to meet the career-long educational needs of engineers, scientists, managers, and executives," says Jim Plummer, dean of the Stanford School of Engineering.

Adds Dr. John Flores, executive director of the USDLA: "The recipients of the 21st Century Award have often been the pioneers, not only for distance learning, but for education and training in general. This award speaks of innovation and it speaks of excellence."

Advances that serve students

The award recognizes SCPD's positive impact on distance learning with innovations such as its new bookmarking system. This feature allows a student to insert flags at any point in a Stanford Online presentation in order to make notes for later review, to submit notes to the professor for clarification, and to participate in an extended community where ideas may be shared with others. "This unique bookmarking system is another step in using technology to insure that Stanford students, both on campus and at a distance, can customize the educational experience and learn from each other," says Andy DiPaolo, executive director of SCPD and senior associate dean of the School of Engineering.

Stanford's pioneering efforts in education outreach date back more than 50 years to the inauguration of the Honors Cooperative Program, which made it possible for working engineers to pursue a graduate degree on a part-time basis. In 1969, the Stanford Instructional Television Network began broadcasting courses to corporations in Silicon Valley. In 1991, Stanford became one of the first universities to use two-way video for educating technical professionals. In 1996, applying technologies created by Stanford faculty, Stanford Online became the first university system to deliver video streaming courses over the Internet. Then, in 1998 Stanford was the first university to offer a complete graduate engineering degree online.

Today the Stanford Center for Professional Development uses media streaming, broadcast television, two-way video, multi-media and blended learning to deliver over 450 graduate and professional education courses to technical professionals employed at more than 500 corporations and government agencies worldwide. Twenty-three Stanford master of science degree concentrations and 32 certificate programs may be completed entirely online. http://scpd.stanford.edu