Contact Information

Office: 150 MCKB, Provo, UT 84602

Department: IP&T

Phone: 801-422-5273

Brief Biography

I am an assistant professor in the Instructional Psychology & Technology department. I graduated with my PhD from the University of Georgia in 2009 and am a member or past member of AECT, AERA, and SITE. You can follow me on Twitter @richardewest

Teaching Interests

I teach undergraduate preservice courses in instructional technology, as well as graduate courses in instructional design and technology, creativity and innovation theories, research and academic writing, and program evaluation. I am also a co-developer of the IPT ED TEC Badges (see http://iptedtec.org)

Research Interests

My primary research interests include how to design, evaluate, and support environments for fostering collaborative innovation, and how to effectively design online learning communities. In addition, I have published on issues related to technology integration, evaluation, and preservice training.

Through my research, I have developed:

- The Communities of Innovation framework for understanding the characteristics of innovative communities of workers or learners. This framework received the AECT Young Scholar and Outstanding Journal Article Award.

- A framework (With Peter Rich) for evaluating the quality of academic scholarship based on the principles of Rigor, Impact, and Prestige. This framework has been explained in articles in Innovative Higher Education and Educational Technology.

- A validated instrument (with Brad Marianno) for assessing individual levels of dynamic expertise, a key characteristic of members of innovative communities.

My articles can be downloaded or viewed at:

- Mendeley

- Academia.edu

- Google Scholar

Awards and Honors

2nd Place, Outstanding Practice Article in Distance Learning, DDL Division of the Association for Educational Communications Technology2012.

2nd Place, Outstanding Research Article in Distance Learning, DDL Division of the Association for Educational Communications Technology2012.

Nancy Marriott Outstanding Scholar Award, Brigham Young University McKay School of Education2012.

Outstanding Journal Article, Association for Educational Communications Technology, 2010 - 2010.