2009 Edu Blogger Scholarship

The wait is over. I have the names of the 3 winners of the Edu Blogger Scholarship contest (the grand prize and the 2 lucky prizes).

But, first I’d like to thank all the participants who took the time to submit an entry (and boo all the other higher ed bloggers who decided to pass on this opportunity ;-)

Want to know who won? Just keep reading (you’ll probably scan the explanation of how we evaluated the posts, but I thought it was a good idea to include it as well – just to be as transparent as possible.)

One last thing I’d like to point out is that the sponsor of this contest – onlinecollege.org – gave me the total freedom to design, promote and manage it – which is kind of cool.

So, now here’s what has been done since the 20 finalists were announced.

After reviewing the posts of the 20 finalists, each of the 3 judges (Matt Herzberger from BlogHighEd.org, Stewart Foss from eduStyle and Karine Joly from Collegewebeditor.com) gave a score to every post in the following categories:

• Have you learned anything interesting by reading this post? (5 points)
• How original is the topic of this blog post? (5 points)
• Does this post engage its readers (as opposed to just pushing a specific message)? (5 points)
• Can the post title work as a stand alone (in search engine, aggreagators, etc.)? (1 point)
• Would you share this post on Twitter or your own blog? (1 point)

The 3 independent sets of scores were then added for every post.

The highest scorer (43/51) was then declared the winner of the 2009 Edu Blogger Scholarship worth $1,500: The Old College Try for Top Distance Learning Marketing Challenges

The Old College Try: Marketing Higher Ed: Top Distance Learning Marketing Challenges

The 2 Lucky Edu Blogger Scholarships – worth $500 – each were drawn among all the 28 contest participants using random.org, each one by a different judge. The third judge matched the 2 lucky numbers with the list of all the participants (alphabetized by last name of the blogger).

The winners of the 2 Lucky Edu Blogger Scholarships are
Shelley Keith from eironae.com (#16 drawn by Stewart) and
Heidi Cool from the Web Development Blog (#7 drawn by Matt)

I’ll contact each winner today to arrange the transfer of their respective scholarship.

Thanks and congratulations to all the participants. Keep up the good blogging! And, why not nominate your blog for the Best Higher Ed Blog award?

I had 2 announcements related to higher ed blogging awards, so I thought it made sense to bundle both in a single post.

First, I’d like to announce the 20 finalists of the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest “popularity” phase that ended yesterday:

• al-jamiat.com
• blogs.oc.edu
• christine.smcbloggers.com
• dontwasteyourtime.co.uk
• eironae.com
• elearningpundit.com
• heidicool.com
• highedwebtech.com
• highered.prblogs.org
• higheredmarketing.blogspot.com
• isupportuoregon.org
• karlynmorissette.karlyn.me
• killjill.wordpress.com
• learnqtp.com
• murcha.wordpress.com
• nick.smcbloggers.com
• sekolahbogorraya.edublogs.org
• simpsonscarborough.com/blog
• teachingcollegeenglish.com
• ukwebfocus.wordpress.com

The next step will be for the judges of the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest (Matt Herzberger, Stewart Foss and yours truly) to evaluate the quality and originality of the entered blog posts. After compiling these evaluations, we will announce the winner of the grand prize – the $1,500 scholarship – as well as the lucky winner of the 2 other prizes – the $500 door-prizes – drawn among all the contest entries on April 15.

You have until April 15 to nominate your favorite higher ed blogs (institutional, students and best higher ed blog) to participate in another popularity contest (well, the institutional and student blogs will be judged, but as far as the best higher ed blog goes, only a popular vote will be used): the collegewebeditor.com/eduStyle blogging awards.

Here’s the page explaining how you can nominate a blog for the CollegeWebEditor.com Best Student Blog and Best Institutional Blog and here’s the online form for the CollegeWebEditor.com Best Higher Ed Blog.

For this last category, the rules are a bit different:

This category will be awarded as a “people’s choice” award only (not judged). Any blog related to higher-ed qualifies. Blogs maintained by judges of the eduStyle awards may win this award with the exception of “CollegeWebEditor” and the “eduStyle Blog”. Judges have no influence over the winner in this category. You may:

* Nominate as many blogs as you like
* Nominate your own blog
* Use any means you can conceive to encourage people to nominate your blog

Limit of 1 entry per blog per user of eduStyle.

Isn’t this headline quite a teaser?

I stand by it though as this is also a good way to look at the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest.

As I’ve explained on this blog a few weeks ago, I’m managing this contest targeted to edu bloggers. It’s open to the “usual suspects” of the higher ed blogosphere (you know who you are – and if you aren’t registered yet, hope you’ll do it before the deadline next Tuesday), but also to any of the bloggers writing for your institution.

The only 3 requirements to enter this contest are 1) to write a post about online education or education online, 2) to include the contest badge in the entry and 3) to fill out the form available on the contest page.

While the contest is sponsored by Online College, a website about online education, these posts written for the contest don’t even have to be in favor of online education – and can also help promote what’s going on at YOUR institution.

• If your student bloggers think that studying on campus is the only way to get an education, they can discuss their opinion in their contest post.
• If some of your faculty bloggers teach online classes at your institution and want to write about their experience in a post, they can enter the contest.
• If some of your staff members passionate about academic technology want to blog about the future of education in this online world, they can submit an entry for the contest as well.

What I’m trying to say is that there is plenty that can be written about education online or online education, and I’m sure the folks blogging for your institution would love to get an opportunity to win one of the 3 scholarships.

Think it’s not even worth trying because of the numbers of A-list bloggers already entered in the contest?
Even if I find it hard to understand, as of this writing, we only have a dozen entries – which means that with 3 prizes to win, any interested edu blogger has a very high probability (we’re not even talking about chances) to grab at least $500.

I know most edu bloggers don’t do it for the money (hey, if we were we would be blogging about something else), but I would really love to see a bit more entries for this contest, you know, just to keep things interesting for the jury.

So, go read the rules on the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest page. Share this post with your bloggers or go write your own entry if you’re a blogger.

The deadline is next Tuesday – March 17.

I don’t plan to make the contest the only topic I’ll blog about in the next few weeks, but I think it’s important at this stage to give you an update about a few questions that were asked (even if you’re not an edu blogger yourself – you should share the information with the ones you know, they deserve a chance to win some cash).

So, here’s a quick FAQ post about the 2009 Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest:

1) I am not a blogger, why should I care?
This contest is open to all edu bloggers – that would also include your student bloggers or anyone blogging at your institution about topics related to education. Make friends, share the info.

2) Why would I add a badge to my sidebar pointing to the contest page that could lead my readers to believe that I’m supporting Online College, the sponsor of the contest – or that they are advertising on my blog (especially for free)?
Ok, so I made a mistake on this one when coming up with the contest rules.
I’ve talked to the sponsor after listening to your feedback, and they’ve agreed to waive this condition. To be part of this contest, you just need to write a post about online education (or education online), add to it the badge linking to the contest page and fill out the online form on the contest page.

3) The first phase is a “popularity contest,” the judges won’t even read my entry if I don’t make it to the top 20 blogs referring traffic to the contest page between March 18 and March 30, 2009. Why your Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest is not just about the quality of my blogging – Period?
When there is a total amount of $2,500 to win with no entry fee, it’s safe to expect a large number of entries. Stewart and Matt, the 2 other judges are volunteers (so, the participating bloggers get a chance to win most of the money), so I couldn’t asked them to review dozens (or hundreds) of posts just for the beauty of the deed.

4) I understand there was a need to select a manageable number of entries for the first phase, but why didn’t you use a public voting to find the best?
I had the choice between setting up a public voting (where your readers or friends would pick your blog on the contest page and click on the “vote” button – 2 clicks for them, 1 vote for you) or figuring out these votes by the visitors sent to the contest page from your blog (just 1 click for your readers – or more if they really want you to win, if they are really passionate about your blogging, they’ll do anything and passionate readers should count more, don’t you think?). I chose the second option as I believe they are both similar at the end of the day. Both are popularity contests. Period.

5) I have a question about the contest that wasn’t addressed above. What should I do?
Post it in the comment below or email karine@collegewebeditor.com, I’ll post the reply by updating this post.

Actually, it’s even better than this as I’m talking about 3 different scholarships:

• The 2009 Edu Blogger Scholarship worth US $1,500
• 2 Lucky Edu Blogger Scholarships worth US $500 each

Do I have your attention now?
Hopefully, I do.

With 4 years of higher ed blogging under my belt, I know how demanding (and most of the time financially little rewarding) it can be to maintain a great edu blog. That’s one of the reasons I came up with the “Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest” idea when I was contacted (and hired) by the folks from Online College to help them create some online buzz around their new website about online education.

It’s free to participate, and you will have 3 chances to win something out of this contest created by an edu blogger for edu bloggers (and in case you’re wondering — I know we, edu bloggers, can be a very cautious bunch — the scholarship money is real and already sitting in my PayPal account waiting for the winners). Stewart Foss from eduStyle, Matt Herzberger from Blog High Ed and yours truly will be the judges of this contest (and have all kissed goodbye the opportunity to win the scholarships ;-)

So, please make sure you register and spread the word (or some #edubloggerlove as I’ve been teasing my Twitter followers for a few days now) about this opportunity accessible to any edu blogger.

The contest opens today and you can submit your entry until March 17, 2009. You’ll find all the rules, the online form and everything you want to know about the contest on the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest

Got questions?

Just email contest@onlinecollege.org (I’ll get your emails) or post a comment below.