Free Webinar Will Discuss Varying Models of Institution-wide Faculty Commons Being Used to Improve Faculty Communication, Connection and Collaboration

San Francisco, CA, August 21, 2012 – In recognition of August as Connected Educator Month, GoingOn Networks today announced that it will kick off its free “Connected Educator” webinar series on August 28th with the session, “Benefits of Deploying an Institution-wide Faculty Commons: How CUNY, National University and Academia.edu are Utilizing Social Technologies to Improve Professional Development, Curriculum Sharing, Grant Collaboration and Broader Faculty Communications.” The 45-minute webinar begins at 2pm ET/11am PT on Aug. 28 and it will also be offered again at 2pm ET on September 18. Registrations are currently being accepted on the GoingOn website.

In these two sessions, Jon Corshen, CEO of GoingOn Networks, and Dr. Colin Marlaire, Director of the Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching and Training at National University, will explore varying models of deploying an institution-wide Faculty Commons by examining the approaches of CUNY Faculty Commons, National University’s Faculty Network and consumer offerings such as Academia.Edu.

“With so much attention focused on online learning, the potential of social technologies to transform faculty communications and collaboration has often been overlooked. But today, many institutions are beginning to recognize the power of creating a common online space where faculty can connect, share ideas, develop multi-disciplinary curriculum and discover opportunities for collaborative work,” said Corshen. “For school administration, Faculty Commons offer a dramatically better way to manage communications, replacing antiquated portals, list-serves and ‘institutional SPAM’.”

In fact, earlier this month in a video about Connected Educator Month, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan remarked on the importance of educators connecting with one another in online social environments. In his remarks, Secretary Duncan said, “We know that online professional learning through communities and networks is powerful, particularly when done in collaboration with a school’s professional learning community.” He continued, saying: “The model of continuous learning and problem solving within these online spaces is integral to teaching and leading in the 21st century.”

GoingOn Networks serves a spectrum of education institutions including colleges and universities as well as K-12 organizations such as New Teacher Center, National Writing Project and Reach Associates. While Connected Educator month is largely a celebration of connecting educators in the K-12 grades, GoingOn recognizes the value and benefit of educators working with one another to share best practices and collaborate at all levels of education, including at the university and college level.

To help higher education faculty members understand the benefits of participating with their colleagues in an online social environment, GoingOn developed the Connected Educator webinar series. During the Aug. 28 and Sept. 18 sessions, participants will:

* Understand the basic design & features of today’s Faculty Commons

* Examine the various uses, benefits and resource savings of a commons-based approach

* Learn how to avoid common challenges and pitfalls of implementation and adoption

* Gain a better understanding of how a Faculty Commons fits within your broader technology landscape, as well as different deployment and integration models

As recently stated in CUNY’s Faculty Commons Quarterly, “[the Commons model] assumes a definition of faculty professional development as something done by faculty, not something done to them.”

Space is limited for these free sessions. Professionals from the office of CIO, academic affairs and continuing education, provosts, chancellors, deans of faculty and others interested in attending either session should go to the following link to register:
http://www.goingon.com/benefits-deploying-institution-wide-faculty-commons.

For more information about GoingOn, visit www.GoingOn.com.

About GoingOn Networks, Inc.;
GoingOn provides colleges and universities and educational organizations with an innovative, On-Demand communications and collaboration environment where students, faculty and administrators can more effectively connect, converse and engage across all aspect of their academic life experience.  As the reliance on social and mobile technologies continues to accelerate, institutions are being challenged to create a more modern connected campus where students and faculty can more easily communicate, share resources and connect with each other, from anywhere and at any time.

The GO Platform allows institutions to build a privately branded academic social network where users can more easily access school-wide information and resources and come together to interact, share ideas and expand their knowledge base.  The GoingOn solution can be easily and quickly deployed without requiring development or technical resources and will grow organically across the campus.  The platform combines an intuitive Personal Virtual Commons with Facebook-like activity streams, self-service tools for building collaborative spaces and integrated academic networking features.  For more information or to learn more about GoingOn, visit www.GoingOn.com.

Contact:
Lindsey (Mikal) Read
Communications Strategy Group
3225 East 2nd Avenue
Denver, CO 80206
937-408-9321
lread@csg-pr.com
http://www.csg-pr.com