IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of California, Irvine Extension program and its OpenCourseWare initiative recently received four Impact awards at the 2012 Internet Marketing Association (IMA) Conference in Las Vegas. The 2012 Impact Awards recognize businesses of all sizes that have demonstrated superiority in developing innovative and successful Internet marketing strategies and campaigns. The social media efforts of the UC Irvine Extension marketing team combined with the content-rich webinar series developed by the school's industry-leading course instructors garnered much attention at the conference – leading to wins in four separate categories.
"We're thrilled about receiving four Impact awards at this year's IMA conference," said Dr. Gary Matkin, dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning and Summer Session at UC Irvine. "UC Irvine Extension is constantly changing and expanding our use of Internet technologies in ways that improve communications and enhance the learning process for students and educators around the world. These awards recognize our accomplishments and further validate our mission to drive innovation and excellence through our distance learning program and social media outreach."
UC Irvine Extension won awards in the following categories:
- Best Facebook – for offering the most innovative and successful Facebook marketing program among all nominees.
- Best Facebook "Like" Outreach – for generating "Likes" in connection with the university's "50 Years, 50 Stories" campaign celebrating UC Irvine Extension's 50th anniversary.
- Best Webinar Series – Educational – for a series of free online webinars featured to educate marketing professionals on how best to leverage Internet marketing strategies to grow their business.
- Best Webinar/Vodcast/Podcast – Educational Series – for a unique series of organic chemistry courses (Chemistry 51A) taught by professor James Nowick featured on the UC Irvine OpenCourseWare site.
In 2011, UC Irvine Extension formalized a social media plan and strategy to engage with enrolled and prospective students across different social media platforms, including Facebook, to support engagement with students and prospective students as an institution and in a range of specific disciplines such as marketing, project management, education and employee training. Building around the theme of UC Irvine Extension's 50th anniversary celebration, the university launched its "50 Years, 50 Stories" program. This involved the use of a custom-developed Facebook app that was designed to increase the number of "Likes" to the main UC Irvine Extension Facebook page while capturing student and alumni testimonials for promotional use in online and offline marketing efforts.
In conjunction with the IMA, UC Irvine Extension launched the UC Irvine Internet Marketing Webinar Series in 2011. This series was designed to educate marketing professionals on how best to leverage Internet marketing strategies in order to grow their business. The next free Internet Marketing Webinar Series webinar will be held on Oct. 17 and is titled "Help, I Can't Find that Email you Sent." Catherine Brown, vice president of software, will discuss how online collaboration and social media project management tools can help individuals and companies work more efficiently.
UC Irvine also embarked on an "Open Chemistry" project focused on publishing a full undergraduate and partial graduate program composed of 13 or more quarter-length courses in a free and open manner currently available to people around the world. This project was pioneered through a partnership between UC Irvine's School of Physical Sciences, Distance Learning Center, OpenCourseWare Initiative, and University Extension. During Spring 2012, more than 75 lectures were filmed and uploaded to YouTube, and added to the OpenCourseWare website (http://ocw.uci.edu).
To register for the Internet Marketing webinar, visit http://unex.uci.edu/services/events/#00511. For additional information about the internet marketing program, visit http://extension.uci.edu/im.
ABOUT UC IRVINE EXTENSION: University of California, Irvine Extension is the continuing education arm of UC Irvine. Through thousands of courses and programs offered on campus, online and on site, UC Irvine Extension helps adult learners reach their career advancement and personal enrichment goals — and is celebrating 50 years of providing universally accessible, university-level learning to local, regional, and global communities. Learn more at extension.uci.edu, or join us on Facebook at facebook.com/uciextension.
ABOUT UC IRVINE'S OPENCOURSEWARE INITIATIVE: The University of California, Irvine was the first University of California campus—and West Coast University—to join the OCW Consortium. UC Irvine's membership in the OCW Consortium is consistent with its public- and land-grant missions and its desire to play a significant role in contributing to the social welfare of the state, the nation and the world. Open educational resources (OER) showcase the University's high quality education and makes courses and course materials free for everyone in the world. UC Irvine's OCW is a large-scale, Web-based resource that houses educational assets that are discoverable, searchable, modifiable, and, best of all, free and easily available. Through the OCW Movement, UC Irvine provides university-quality courses and learning assets to populations of self-learners that are underserved and in many cases, unable to participate in formal education at a university. This site also offers access to UC Irvine's online continuing education offerings. For more information about UC Irvine's OCW initiative, visit http://ocw.uci.edu/ or e-mail ocw@unx.uci.edu.
ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.
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SOURCE UC Irvine Extension