Online Teacher of the Year Guidelines

The College of Pharmacy recognizes its outstanding educators by offering the Online Teacher of the Year Award. The Online Teacher of the Year Award is designed to encourage and reward excellence, innovation, and effectiveness in online teaching. The award consists of a plaque and a check for $2,000. The eligibility criteria for the award are as follows:

• The individual must be a faculty member (tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure track, or other regular faculty appointment, including lecturer or clinical faculty, but not temporary employment; other personnel services “OPS” appointees, or courtesy faculty appointments), who teach in the lifelong learning online graduate degree program.
• Ineligible faculty include: Individuals who received this award at the college level during the previous two years; the Assistant Dean of Lifelong Learning and the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education.

Nominations

The call for nominations will be distributed via email to faculty, online graduate students, and staff each April. Nominations must be submitted by at least three individuals for a given faculty member to be eligible for consideration. At least one of the nominators must be a student. Nominations will be accepted through April 30 of each year, and the winner will be announced in June. For a full overview of the nominations and selections process, please see the Online Teacher of the Year Selection Guidelines.

Selection Process and Criteria

The Graduate Research and Education Committee is charged to select the Online Teacher of the Year for the College of Pharmacy. The following guidelines are designed to supplement and work in conjunction with the University of Florida Guidelines for Teacher of the Year with respect to nomination and selection procedure for the College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year.

• Eligibility:
  • The individual must be a faculty member (tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure track, or other regular faculty appointment including lecturer or clinical faculty, but not temporary employment; other personnel services “OPS” appointees, or courtesy faculty appointments), who teach in the lifelong learning online graduate program.
  • Ineligible faculty include:
    • Individuals who received this award at the college level during the previous two years.
    • The Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education and the Assistant Dean of Lifelong Learning.
• II. Nomination Process:
  • The call for nominations will be announced to the faculty, current online graduate students, and staff by a general memorandum, which will be distributed by email according to the current University Guidelines.
  • Nominations for college-level teaching awards may be submitted by students, staff, faculty members, department chairs, and/or higher-level administrators. Individual faculty members may also self-nominate.
  • Faculty may not actively solicit nominations for themselves from students, staff, or faculty.
  • A written nomination including the justification for the nomination must be submitted to the Chair of the Graduate Research and Education Committee.
  • Nominations must be submitted by at least three individuals for a given faculty member to be eligible for consideration as an award finalist. At least one of the nominators must be a current or former online graduate student.
  • Statements of nomination will be shared with each nominee. Statements will be deidentified before shared with the nominee.
• Selection Committee and Process:
  • The Selection Committee will consist of members of the Graduate Research and Education Committee.
  • If a member of the Graduate Research and Education Committee is a finalist for teacher of the year and accepts the nomination, he or she must recuse themselves from the committee (only during the selection process) and the Assistant Dean for Lifelong Learning must appoint a new member to serve on the selection committee. Effort should be made to replace the nominated faculty member with someone who equitably represents the missing member.
  • The Chair of the Graduate Research and Education Committee shall serve as the Chair of the Selection Committee unless he or she is a finalist for teacher of the year. In this case, the Vice-chair of the Graduate Research and Education committee will serve as the Chair of the Selection Committee. If both the Chair and Vice-chair of the curriculum committee are finalists for the award, the Assistant Dean for Lifelong Learning will appoint a chair of the Selection committee.
  • The Graduate Research and Education Committee is responsible for developing the Portfolio criteria and revising these criteria as appropriate each year. Criteria include the following at a minimum:
    • A 2-page narrative describing:
      • Evidence of Excellence in Teaching and LearningQuality Indicators of Excellence in Teaching and Learning
      Artifacts (e.g., Canvas discussion boards, interactive learning, student support, grading and feedback, individualized learning paths, etc.) supporting the narrative description, not to exceed 4 artifacts.Appropriate formatting of the portfolio (e.g. order of content, page limitations, page formatting)
    • Student evaluations for the past year.

• The Assistant Dean for Lifelong Learning will notify the department chair and the Dean of each award finalist.
  • Each award finalist must sign a statement waiving the right to confidentiality for the Award Selection Committee of all the evaluation materials due to the sensitive nature of contents of portfolio materials (e.g. student teaching evaluations, peer reviews of teaching, letters of support, etc.).
  • The Assistant Dean of Lifelong Learning will forward the Selection Committee’s recommendation for the Online Teacher of the Year to the Dean of the College of Pharmacy, along with a written justification for the recommendation.

These guidelines may be modified as needed to be in compliance with the University of Florida Guidelines by a majority vote of the Graduate Research and Education Committee