PORTLAND, Ore. – Three pairs of graduate students have been selected as finalists in the 2006 PacifiCorp Design and Development Award competition. PacifiCorp and the Design and Development Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology co-sponsor the annual competition for graduate students studying instructional design. The winning team will be decided Oct. 12 at the Annual Association for Educational Communications and Technology Convention in Dallas, Texas.

In its third year, the competition was designed to promote collaboration among students, faculty and instructional design practitioners, to recognize innovative design and development approaches to adult learning and performance improvement problems and to improve professional practices. The competition also provides opportunities for promising graduate students to work with mentors from among the academic and corporate leaders in the field of instructional design.

A problem statement is formulated each year with a challenging conceptual or practical problem relevant to the interests of the adult learning and performance improvement community. Student teams submitted papers addressing the problem, and a judging panel selected finalists based on creativity, theoretical soundness and practicality. Teams will present their final papers to be judged at the Annual Association for Educational Communications and Technology Convention Oct. 12.

This year’s finalists and professional mentors are:

As an added benefit to this year’s competition, $1,000 in scholarship funding will be awarded on behalf of the finalists to their respective universities. The funding was provided by a grant from the PacifiCorp Foundation, the charitable arm of PacifiCorp, Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power.

"Students benefit from working on real-life problems with seasoned professionals," said PacifiCorp’s Dan Schuch. "Businesses are able to interact with potential job candidates, and the exchange of ideas and information is useful for universities and practitioners. As a co-sponsor of the competition, PacifiCorp also benefits by having input on the selection of the competition topic – since graduate students are learning the latest instructional design techniques and often provide innovative approaches to real issues faced by companies today."

PacifiCorp’s sponsorship covers the finalists’ Association for Educational Communications and Technology Conference registration. In addition to having their papers judged, finalists will also be judged on the clarity, teamwork and professionalism of their presentations. Award-winning papers will be considered for publication in Association for Educational Communications and Technology’s Educational Technology Research and Development scholarly journal.

For additional information about the PacifiCorp Association for Educational Communications and Technology Design and Development Award competition, visit  www.aect.org/pacificorp/, call Dan Schuch at 503-813-7193 or e-mail  dan.schuch@pacificorp.com.

About PacifiCorp

PacifiCorp is one of the lowest-cost electricity producers in the United States, providing more than 1.6 million customers with reliable, efficient energy. PacifiCorp has more than 10,400 megawatts of generation capacity from coal, hydro, renewable wind power, natural gas-fueled combustion turbines, solar and geothermal. PacifiCorp operates as Pacific Power in Oregon, Washington and California; and as Rocky Mountain Power in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. The company was acquired by MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company in 2006.

About The Association for Educational Communications and Technology

The mission of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology is to provide international leadership by promoting scholarship and best practices in the creation, use and management of technologies for effective teaching and learning in a wide range of settings.


Media inquiries: newsdesk@pacificorp.com