This was an interesting document to read, especially given how many web-based courses I teach. I found it interesting that their very first point dealt with how "writing instruction should be universally inclusive and accessible" (7), as I currently have a blind student in my web based ENG 1020 course. Having taken that course through Quality Matters certification, I'm confident that my web-based course is fully accessible. 

For this course, OWI Principle 2 was very applicable. Students should be learning to write, not spending lots of time learning technologies (although they should be using technology, of course). A lot of this comes down to institutional support of an office that can help build technological orientations for students and other resources to help guide students through this process. 

OWI Principle 3 addresses how to adapt teaching and learning strategies to the web-based LMS, as it's not just a simple conversion from f2f to online; some things must change. This is related to Principle 4, too, which addresses the need for appropriate composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies in these courses as well. This, in part, is meant to counteract the sort of "automatic," facilitator-type teaching that some colleges (mostly for profits) do where a "shell" course is set up with everything pre-populated, and then someone is hired to just manage the course (no theory, little pedagogy; it's more of like a drone situation). 

OWI Principle 5 over ownership over faculty material is a major concern of the AAUP, I can tell you, and something we have frequent conversations about. It was good to see a principle about 'academic freedom' in the online environment, which has (and still is) a concern I've had. 

Principle 6 was interesting in that it implicitly recognized that there is a need for experimentation, although it needs to be accountable and conducted ethically. The Campus I now work at does a lot of experimentation but never at the cost of student success and learning (and on the rare occasion where an experiment fails, we do not hold the student responsible for that). If you're not failing, you're probably not really doing anything worthwhile. 

Principle 7 was interesting, as this semester will be the first time that a Dean is observing one of my online classes (in the 6 years I've been doing this), at my request. That alone demonstrates a real difference in how many administrators privilege face to face classes over web-based courses, which of course impacts funding decisions, release time, etc. 

There of course are many more principles in this document, but this will be a great resource to demonstrate to administrators that there is a need for more work to be done with our web-based courses, and we can't do it without institutional support. 

I'll be honest: while I appreciate the structure of the past/present/future approach that this book takes, this kind of periodization always comes at a loss (as I talked about with Chapter 7). I get they want people to move their thinking forward, but the authors seem unaware of some of the serious philosophical hazards that accompany any kind of "progress" (drawing on usage of Jean Francois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition and The Postmodern Explained). Anyways, the chapter divides up (always an artificial effort to organize information) the history of learning communities as I illustrate in the technology challenge between the bureaucratic past, the self-managing present, and the collaborative future, none of which I object to, except in thinking on these things as separate historical moments: the problem is that even with a push toward collaborative learning, this must invariably involve some self-managed learning as well as (unfortunately) some engagement in standardized 'learning.' For instance, I have several peer-reviewed publications, yet I'm scheduled to retake the GRE in preparation of applying to ODU's Ph.D. in English program, the absurdity of course being that such a standardized test tells ODU very little about my writing compared to, well, my actual writing. But still, I must take the tests, and our students are in these situations, too. So, I like to think of these periods more of as a continuum.