Enhancing Learning Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: The Challenges and Joys of Juggling (McKinney, 2007) provides a practical, applied look at the growing need for scholarly teaching in higher education.

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks has just published its latest issue at http://jaln.sloanconsortium.org/index.php/jaln. Please review the Table of Contents below, then visit http://www.sloanconsortium.org to review articles and items of interest.

You've created your questions, completed your literature review and collected the necessary data... now its time to see what you've got and analyze your data!

This stage of your research project involves determining the methods you will use to collect the evidence you need to answer your question. There are many methods available to researchers, and the key is to find the method that best fits your research question, and that will give you the best evidence (data) to answer your question. It is also important at this stage of the research process to decide “who” you will want to gather evidence from (students, faculty, support staff, texts, etc).

Research doesn't exist in a vacuum... every idea builds on the successes (and failures) of all the previous work in the field. As such, it is essential to start with a working knowledge of what has already been done on your topic.

Good SoTL research starts with an ability to approach your investigation with quality, effective questions that target the heart of teaching and learning.

Sloan-C recently released a new book, Elements of Quality Online Education: Engaging Communities.

For improving student learning in higher education, the 5th annual SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching & Learning) Commons Conference will be held March 7-9, 2012 at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA.

One means of examining the value of a potential journal outlet is to look at citation rankings. This information provides a snapshot of the frequency by which a particular journal is cited by others. Matt Elbeck (Troy University) provides a ranking of the main journals that feature research about online learning and teaching (computer-mediated learning).