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Technology and Science World Campus launches eStudentUnion By Celena E. Kusch
	The University is home to one of the first distance learning programs in U.S. higher education. Launched in 1892 with correspondence courses, Penn State Distance Education has since become a leader in innovating course design and delivery and in providing comprehensive support and services for its students at a distance.   “Penn State has offered distance education courses for more than a century,” Dr. Gary E. Miller, associate vice president for Outreach and executive director of the Penn State World Campus, stressed. “We learned many years ago that we must support the student’s entire experience at a distance.”   That commitment to student support continues to drive innovation in the online learning environment of the World Campus.   “With Web-based instruction, it is not enough to put courses online,” Miller explained. “Our students also need to have access to a wide variety of support services. For us, the online environment provides an exciting new way to engage students in co-curricular activities.”   This fall, World Campus students will enjoy a host of opportunities to connect with services and programs through the new eStudentUnion Web portal. All World Campus students who have Penn State Access Accounts will have access to the site.   “Since students are already going online to study, it made sense to us that the Web is also a good way to provide support services. The eStudentUnion portal will make student services available in a way that is as convenient, flexible and accessible as our courses,” Miller said.   The eStudentUnion was developed with support from a $50,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation, part of a larger Sloan grant to the World Campus. A number of World Campus instructional designers and information technology staff, including Robert Snyder, director of Data Management Services and lead research programmer; Gail Foster, information systems support analyst; and Allan Gyorke, instructional technology manager, worked in collaboration with the University’s student portal team in Information Technology Services to provide technical design for the site. Heather L. Chakiris, assistant director for student services for the World Campus, leads the eStudentUnion development team.   “Several other universities have student portals for their resident student body,” Chakiris noted, “but to the best of my knowledge, we are one of the first universities to have a specific portal site with content geared toward the special needs of adult distance learners.”   Currently, the eStudentUnion can allow World Campus students to order course materials, access University Libraries and other online research sites, stay up-to-date on the University and other news, follow Penn State Athletics, purchase Penn State merchandise, learn about the Penn State Alumni Association and improve study and time-management skills.   A recent usability study of the portal concluded World Campus students are very satisfied with the eStudentUnion features. Chakiris worked with Lynne Johnson, instructional designer; Janet May, program manager for the World Campus; Kim Furst, a former World Campus academic adviser; and Angie Volz, graphic artist for World Campus Instructional Design and Development, to complete the study, which found students liked having the ability to customize the site to fit their individual interests and needs.   “They said that everything they could possibly need seemed to be on there,” Chakiris added.   According to Chakiris, plans for the site continue to expand. Future resources currently in development include ways for World Campus students to access their courses through the eStudentUnion and a chat tool that will allow students to communicate in real-time with World Campus academic advisers and other student services staff.   Eventually, the eStudentUnion will offer online chats with guest speakers, such as staff from the Financial Aid Office or Career Services. Alicia Spong, instructional designer for Information Technology Services, and Christina MacGill, assistant director of Career Services, are already developing a free online workshop in résumé writing. Future workshops also will include job search strategies and interviewing skills.   “One important goal for the eStudentUnion is to further the World Campus’ mission of building a vibrant learning community for Penn State students at a distance, helping to forge a lifelong relationship between Penn State and its distance learners. The site will always be growing and changing, with the input of the students who use it,” Chakiris said.   “For a lot of institutions around the country, online learning is their first venture into distance education,” Miller added. “They are just now discovering the critical importance of support services. We hope that the eStudentUnion will be a benchmark for the field.”