Curriculum Vitae
Synopsis
Jamie’s skills are a unique amalgam which draws on eLearning, visual communication, usability, and systematic design. His experience ranges from technology interaction contexts to cognition and learning to graphic design to the social responsibilities within multiculturalism. These areas share many common theories, methodologies, and practices--Jamie is adept at bringing them together to the benefit of his respective projects and initiatives.
Education
PhD, Kent State University (ABD 2013)
Instructional Technology - Focus on cognitive psychology, instructional design, and multiculturalism. Research: multimedia learning and transfer mediated by cultural focus of onscreen ecosystems.
NEHCLI (Network Executive Health Care Leadership Institute) (2008)
Formal workshops, simulation and role-play, and individual coaching sessions to develop leadership skills, personal mastery, teaming, and negotiation.
CUA (Certified Usability Analyst), Human Factors International (2008)
Certification #2008-1994. Focus: User Centered Analysis, Usability Testing, Design and Application, Putting Research into Practice.
MEd, Cleveland State University (2002)
Curriculum & Instruction - Focus on technology use, teacher education, and adult learning. Thesis project: structure and website of teacher-technology professional development program.
Professional Experience
Instructional System Specialist - eLearning Producer
Department of Veterans Affairs (2011 - Present)
Adapts evolving technology and virtual learning environments in designing/developing/coding effective e-Learning, blended learning, WBT, and instructional multimedia. Collaborates with clients and colleagues on repurposing older face-to-face content for e-Learning, blended learning, and development decisions impacted by social media. Applies accessibility protocols to achieve 508 compliancy for deliverables. Determines implementation modes based on learner needs, content strategy, and business goals. Regularly customizes EES WBT template to adapt clients’ content, learning goals, and learner outcomes. Sought-after proficiencies in integrating instructional design, learner experience design, and cognitive psychology with multimedia and blended learning solutions
Instructional System Specialist - Clinical Applications
Department of Veterans Affairs (2009 - 2001)
Instructional Systems Design (ISD) and Educational Project Management (EPM). Instructional design and learning manager for healthcare applications used directly by doctors, clinicians, and other health care practitioners. Given the spectrum of skills, ages, and abilities, I am uniquely qualified to integrate principles of UX, ID, simulation, and social media targeted directly at respective learners.
Multimedia Instructional System Strategist
Department of Veterans Affairs (2007 - 2009)
Instructional Systems Design (ISD) operating at both the program and project levels. Organizational catalyst for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of elearning. Successfully established processes which integrate instructional design with product design and development in order to create eLearning for specialized learning environment.
Visual Information Specialist for medical practitioner training
Department of Veterans Affairs (2002 - 2009)
Integrating design disciplines as the lead on information architecture, instructional design, and/or user experience aspects of web-based instruction: user base and learning audience of physicians and medical practitioners. Active in evolving the development and process strategies for SCORM-compliant products within an LMS. Logo and branding lead for internal initiatives. Maintains, the SME Prep Tool, a proprietary liaison tool to help experts articulate and chunk information for subsequent repurposing by instructional designers.
Interactivity and solutions design for branding and creative team
marchFIRST/WhittmannHart (2000 - 2002)
Interactivity and graphic design for creative team which supported interactive marketing, heuristic site evaluations, usability testing services, IA, and digital brand strategies. Personally contributed to accounts that include Bank of America, Chrysler, Dana, Eaton, McDonald Investments, Penton Media, and Sherwin Williams.
Adjunct faculty
Cleveland State University (2002 - 2002)
Instructor - Education Dept.: "Web Design for Teachers," a course in the graduate-level teacher education program. Covered concepts of coding, content strategy, multimedia learning, layout, typography, and troubleshooting for a wide range of teachers’ disciplines and abilities. Semester-long projects designed to be real-world tools students applied in their respective professional setting.
Curriculum design for online distance learning
Cleveland State University (2002 - 2002)
Faculty collaboration on graduate-level teacher education course transitioned to be conducted online. Responsible for revising and updating curriculum structure, tasks, and pedagogy. Course created and accessed e-Educatiuon enterprise software application WebCT (now merged with Blackboard).
District resource supporting educational technology
Perry Public Schools (1998 - 2000)
Grew the standardized use of technology within leading Ohio school district in the areas of web, print and video production. Budget management and committee chair for applied research and development for future-use multimedia technologies. Managed classroom teachers in their implementation of multimedia resources. Participated in development of best practices in district’s community relations.
Interactivity/Graphic Designer for tier 1 professional services firm
Ernst & Young (1996 - 1998)
Developed training products for multi-national consulting firm. Key participant in developing taxonomy structures for online just-in-time (JIT) course composition. Interface design and nonlinear audio/video production to CBT modules supporting medical processing, accounting systems, and business processes analysis clients.
Publications & Presentations
Designing the Democratic; Thinking outside of our own cultural influences can strengthen our design decisions
Published at Boxes and Arrows
It is increasingly rare that our users are all from a single nation or culture. Often, our designs must meet the needs of several groups at once. I talk about how our own cultures affect our design decisions.
Cues, The Golden Retriever; How our natural responses to stimuli can inform the design process
Published at Boxes and Arrows
Our brains constantly process the stimuli in our environment and respond, consciously and unconsciously, to what is going on around us. Cues help us navigate this environment. Jamie Owen explores how memory, cognitive psychology, and multimedia research integrate to affect how information is encoded and retrieved as well as how we can best utilize cues in our work.
Voice and Choice: Onscreen Usability as a Praxis of Democracy
Published at The Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology
Elements of cultural dynamics represented in a computer’s graphical user interfaces (GUIs) result from an alignment between designing for onscreen usability and practicing principles of democratic responsibility. Designers and developers seek to understand how end-users respond best during interactions with computers and technology. In planning a union of technology and culture to serve the end user, there is a unique opportunity to design toward a democratic responsibility—to give the users a fair voice in articulating their own learning. At the core of democratic responsibility within usability design is the idea that the interactions onscreen best match the users’ cultural aesthetic, thus increasing the potential agency of the learning.
Cross-Cultural Issues in Online Education -Albert L. Ingram, Chun-Ming Ou, and R. James Owen
Published at The Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology
Regional University had been heavily promoting its online courses for several years and their efforts were really starting to pay off. More and more courses and even entire degree programs were being offered online, and enrollment was up significantly. Regional’s growing reputation for quality was starting to attract students from outside the area and, increasingly, from other countries as well. The word-of-mouth among the international community was leading to enrollment of groups of students from specific places as well. At least some faculty members were excited about the possibilities for improving their teaching and reaching more students.
Voice and Choice: Onscreen Usability as a Praxis of Democracy
Poster - Fourth Annual Conference of Educational Research Exchange 2007
Represented paper researching elements of cultural dynamics in a computer’s graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which result from an alignment between designing for onscreen usability and practicing principles of democratic responsibility.
Mediation and Resolution of Interactive Technology and the Graphical User Interface
Presenter - International Academy for Intercultural Research Conference 2005
Given the breadth and variety of mediations that may utilize technology to leverage an intercultural strategy, it’s important that any component of this strategy is represented to a degree onscreen. The GUI must work to advance the mediations rather detract from them. However tactical or strategic, active or passive, the elements of the GUI must be deliberate and used consciously not only in regard their immediate effects, but in how those effects fit ubiquitously into any broader mediation endeavor that has chosen to integrate the technology.
Affiliations & Awards
Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) - Cleveland Chapter. The UPA supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience.
The Information Architecture Institute (IAI) - Supports individuals and organizations specializing in the design and construction of shared information environments
Web Association (WA) - a nonprofit professional organization whose mission is to serve as a professional technology organization for the Northeast Ohio Internet and Business communities, offering an open forum, education, mutual support and networking opportunities.
Innovations in American Government Award - awarded by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for a progressive technology-centered school-to-work program.
Human Factors International Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) of the Month - A monthly profile feature which highlights notable usability practitioners. Topics in my profile include patient safety, multiculturalism, and a usability technique called "noun architecture."