We use Google Drive quite a bit in our course and curriculum development. It is a favorite tool for collaborating with stakeholders and subject matter experts from all over the world. Meetings are difficult to schedule when design partners belong to four separate time zones, but Drive allows us to keep track of who is doing what, when, and where we are in…

The University of New England has been named to Forbes’ list of America’s Top Colleges, a list that Forbes says is “The 600+ schools well worth the investment.” Forbes bases their list of the top schools on each school’s output, or in other words, what students are getting out of their college education in terms of earning power, student satisfaction,…

One of the guiding aspirations of online education is to reach across geographical (and cultural) boundaries. I love my field because I work to help make higher education more widely available to those who have limited access to it. The Educational Attainment in America map, developed by Kyle Walker at TCU, is a fascinating way to look at that challenge. He developed it…

We caught up with Health Informatics faculty member Imran Khan recently, to discuss his perspective on how he fosters a sense of community with his online students, and also to get his take on upcoming trends in the field of Health Informatics. Imran Khan earned his MBA from the University of Illinois, then went on to earn his MS in…

People often talk about personal integrity, but what about paragraph integrity? An essential part of clear prose, paragraph integrity means each sentence within a paragraph follows from the one that came before. Oftentimes a piece of writing is unclear because it lacks paragraph integrity. Happily, clear paragraphs follow certain rules that are easily discerned. In Style: Toward Clarity and Grace…

Jackson Long, a Master of Science in Applied Nutrition student from Boulder, Colorado, is passionate about plant-based eating and living a healthy lifestyle. Jackson’s interest in nutrition was piqued during his time as a competitive cyclist, as he sought out the optimal diet for his athletic performance. His initial interest in nutrition gradually grew into a passion for helping others…

Social Work is a caring career — and social workers earning their MSW are able to pursue their ambitions to be a political leader or boss, to drive organizational transformation or create game-changing programs, or even carve out a place in the C-Suite. An education in social work gives you an extraordinary set of in-demand, future-friendly skills, ranging from research…

I recently wrote about how information fluency is hoped to bolster our ability to recognize and defuse the phenomena known as fake news. It’s supposed to do so by providing the information fluent with the means to “respect the expertise that authority represents while remaining skeptical of the systems that have elevated that authority and the information created by it.” That quote is taken from…

Many people ask about Health Informatics jobs in Maine. The healthcare industry is a prominent and expanding employment field in Maine. Of the top ten largest private employers in the State of Maine, four are health systems. Maine’s largest city, Portland, follows this broader state employment trend. Portland is home to the largest hospital in the state, Maine Medical Center,…

UNE Online is thrilled to share that we’ve been named one of the top 100 Online Programs in Graduate Education by U.S. News & World Report in their 2017 rankings. The online Graduate Education Programs at the University of New England are dedicated to advancing and developing reflective and resourceful teachers and school leaders who are competent, caring and qualified. Recognized…

A short post today, because we are doing some work on the site and I only have a small window in which to get this up. Luckily, I have been studying something recently which I think deserves a bit of recognition, or at the very least some conversation. That something is the Domain of One’s Own movement, that started up…

Some, but not all, of our programs require letters of recommendation. What makes a great letter of recommendation? A letter of recommendation is a formal document that schools use to help judge whether or not you as a student will be a good fit at that university. There are several key elements of a good letter of recommendation.  First impressions, style, format, referring person, relevant…

UNE Online offers many great degrees and certificate programs; however, did you know that we also offer individual science prerequisite courses? If you’d like to learn more about Science Prerequisites for Health Professions Courses, read on. From Microbiology to General Chemistry, these courses can be taken anywhere in the world! Students who enroll in our science prerequisite courses are typically…

Tyler Blankenship, Dietetic Technician, Registered (DTR), from Orlando, Florida, is a student in the Master of Science in Applied Nutrition program. Tyler’s background includes working as a chef at Walt Disney World, as a restaurant nutritionist at Sea World and also in nutrition management at a long term care facility. From Chef to Dietary Management Prior to beginning his master’s…

One of the keys to engaging online learners and facilitating critical thinking is providing students with timely, meaningful, and actionable feedback. Webinar: Providing Effective Student Feedback Watch this video on YouTube Good feedback is: Timely Instructional Consistent Good feedback also: Highlights a specific knowledge or skill Focuses on thinking (not writing mechanics) Moves a student’s work forward Provides a model…

  Laura Rosales, R.D. is a Master of Science in Applied Nutrition (MSAN) student from El Paso, Texas. She’s a busy working mother who enjoys the academic challenge of pursuing her master’s degree while managing her daily schedule. Prior to beginning her degree with UNE, Laura gained extensive experience in many areas related to the field of nutrition. Pursuing a…

Discussion forums are a hallmark of asynchronous online courses like those at UNE. Previous posts on this site have offered an excellent introduction to Best Practices for Discussion Board Facilitation, and an overview of current conversations around learning outcomes and instructional implications of online discussion forums. In this post, I aim to provide a closer look by offering practical tips…

If you build it, they will come? Not so much in health IT. Many health IT implementations have not succeeded because of one simple flaw: the software was either created, installed, or rolled out (often all three) with little clinical workflow in mind. As educators, how do we ensure that students and those new to the health IT field are prepared…

For more reasons than I can count, the 2016 presidential election has amplified our country’s ongoing debate on web privacy. The topic can grow tiresome, but if we stop to consider that the issue goes far beyond someone’s email server, it becomes a little more interesting. Take student privacy, for example. We expect faculty and staff to honor FERPA. Do…

Massive Open Online Courses have had a bumpy history. Their promise, when the idea was gaining full momentum a few years back, was that so long as a course was well designed it could scale infinitely to teach four thousand students as ably as it could teach twenty. Not only that, but some forward thinkers hypothesized that a MOOC would run…

The field of health informatics is growing ten times faster than healthcare jobs overall, and accounts for the ninth largest share of all healthcare job postings. Big data, electronic records, and value-based payment are just some of the things pushing demand for health informaticists. But while the opportunities are plentiful and growing, many students, job seekers and employers lack a…

Fake news is a hot topic, these days, for reasons that are too complicated to get into here. But just the other day I was in a meeting in which the legitimacy of student sources came up, and I was reminded of two things: Teaching students how to tell the difference between good and bad sources is a recurring challenge in education…

UNE Online launched a #HITedu Twitter Chat to connect students, educators, employers, employees, policy makers, patients, and others with a vested interest in health informatics education, training and jobs. We held our chat on January 10, 2017 at 12pm EST using the hashtag #HITedu on Twitter. Big data, machine learning, predictive analytics, quality measurement, MACRA, population health, telemedicine – these…

“Thanks to this terrific program, I was just offered my dream job on Tuesday as a Foodborne Disease Outbreak Epidemiologist for the Tennessee Department of Health in Nashville! I never thought I would land it by the age of 28!” MPH student Thomas Troelstrup reached out to us with some exciting news about his career this week, so we wanted…