This is the eighth annual Keeping Pace report, and as the Keeping Pace history grows, it becomes harder to acknowledge properly everyone who has been involved over the years. It is unlikely that when the study was first conceived anyone imagined that it would be around eight years later, let alone develop to the point that it has.

Keeping Pace continues to benefit from a growing set of authors, researchers, sponsors, and contributors—all of whom are important, and none more important than those who saw the value of the research in the earliest days of the study. The first Keeping Pace was published in 2004, in response to a request for timely online education policy information by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). Stevan Kalmon, then of the CDE, was a strong advocate for the project and helped with raising funds, writing, and guiding the concepts behind the study. The report was originally envisioned as a simple document that would be distributed only to the sponsoring organizations, but Cathy Gunn, then of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory at Learning Point Associates, recognized the work’s larger value and was instrumental in suggesting and overseeing publication and distribution to a wider audience. The four funding organizations in the first year were the CDE, Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS), Learning Point Associates, and Wisconsin Virtual School.

In 2004 Keeping Pace reviewed 22 states, and in 2005 expanded to review all 50 states. The expansion to review the entire country was largely in response to the vision of Matthew Wicks, then of IVHS, who overcame the reluctance of the researchers when faced with the daunting task of covering all states. Although IVHS (now Illinois Virtual School) is no longer a sponsor of the report, we are fortunate that Matt has remained part of the Keeping Pace team.

The cast of Keeping Pace sponsors evolves every year, with the only common thread being that they are educational organizations that share an interest in online education and believe that it is important that current policy and practice information be available to practitioners and policymakers. Sponsors provide guidance and leadership in planning, research, analysis, and writing. Keeping Pace benefits from the involvement of these experienced and knowledgeable online learning practitioners and their organizations:

Alex Stone
VLN Partners

Allison Powell and Matthew Wicks
International Association for K-12 Online Learning

Andy Frost
PLATO Learning

Andy Scantland
Advanced Academics

Barbara Smith and Kate Loughrey
Texas Education Agency

Jamey Fitzpatrick and Dan Schultz
Michigan Virtual University

John Canuel
Blackboard

Julie Young and Holly Sagues
Florida Virtual School

Liz Pape and Debbie Kenny
Virtual High School Global Consortium

Mickey Revenaugh
Connections Education

Mohit Bhargava
LearningMate

Terri Rowenhorst
National Repository of Online Courses

Michael C. Watkins and Kelly Schwirzke
Santa Cruz County Office of Education

Todd Hitchcock
Pearson

We are also grateful to the many other researchers and writers working in online learning, many of whom help spur our thinking as they engage in pondering the hard issues that are raised by innovation. While there are too many to mention all, among those who deserve our recognition and appreciation include Amy Anderson, previously of the Donnell-Kay Foundation and now with the Colorado Department of Education; Bill Tucker of Education Sector; Heather Staker and Michael Horn of Innosight Institute; Rick Ferdig of Kent State University; and Susan Patrick of iNACOL.

The educators and policymakers who gave their time to provide the information that is the basis for Keeping Pace are another set of key contributors to the report. We have been consistently surprised by the amount of time and quality of responses we receive from people around the country; this report would not be possible without their input. We have made every attempt to ensure accuracy of the information in Keeping Pace, but we recognize that in a report of this breadth some errors of accuracy or omission are likely. We welcome comments, clarifications, and suggestions to .moc.1329959735puorg1329959735denee1329959735rgrev1329959735e@nho1329959735j1329959735

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