Judith Fusco

Research Social Scientist

Dr. Judith Fusco is a research scientist in SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning, and specializes in researching and developing online communities, technologies, and resources. Since 1998, she has directed the community development of TAPPED IN, an online community for teacher professional development. While developing the community, she has worked with master teachers from all over the world; and organizations like, NCREL, PBS, Pepperdine University, and Los Angeles County Office of Education. She has helped grow Tapped In from 300 teachers to over 20,000 and has helped many organizations learn to work online.

Dr. Fusco's research on the community involves examining social and technical supports necessary for online community, individual and group readiness, investigating models for online professional development, understanding the nature of local K-12 education communities of practice, generally analyzing and applying social network analysis (SNA) techniques to quantitative data gathered in the community. In addition, she is part of the OERL (Online Evaluation Research Library) team. She is co-leading the evaluation of the OERL web site and working with professors to investigate how OERL might be used in graduate level evaluation courses.

Before coming to SRI International, she worked at Apple Computer, Inc. leading the community development of Convomania, on an online community for kids who are sick or have a disability. The community of Convomania ended in January of 1998, so Dr. Fusco, Teresa Middleton (CTL alum) and others formed the online community PatchWorx, a 501c3 non-profit organization for kids who are sick or have a disability.

Education

Ph.D., Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 1997
M.A., Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 1996
B.A., Psychology, Washburn University of Topeka, Kansas, 1991

Professional Experience

Research Social Scientist, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA (1997-present)
Online Community Developer/Researcher, Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (1996-1997)
Statistical Consultant, University of California Riverside, CA (1993-1997)
Teaching Assistant, University of California Riverside, CA (1991-1994)

Research Areas at CTL

Learning Environments

Current Projects at CTL

Past Projects at CTL

Building Social and Technical Infrastructure for Teacher Mentoring, Coaching, and Peer Support ended 2003
CLTNet: Centers for Learning and Teaching Network ended 2008
Educator's Knowledge Network Evaluation (Staff) ended 2007
Online Evaluation Resource Library (OERL) ended 2008
Social Capital for Technology Integration ended 2007

Publications

Schlager, M., Farooq, U., Fusco, J., Schank, P., & Dwyer, N. (2009). Analyzing online social networking in professional learning communities: Cyber networks require cyber-research tools. Journal of Technology Education, 60(1), 86-100.
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Farooq, U., Schank, P., Harris, A., Fusco, J. & Schlager, M. (2008). Sustaining a community computing infrastructure for online teacher professional development: A case study of designing Tapped In. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW).
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Koch, M. & Fusco, J. (2007, in press). Designing for Growth: Enabling Communities of Practice to Develop and Extend Their Work Online. In C. Kimble & P. Hildreth (Eds.) Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing Inc.
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Fusco, J., Huang, J., & Harris, A. (2005). Utilizing usability testing methods to improve OERL. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
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Fusco, J., Skolnik, H., Haertel, GD, Javitz, H., Smith, N., & Thurston, E. (2005, April). OERL survey. design, methodology, administration and results. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montréal, Canada.
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Schlager, M. S. & Fusco, J. (2004). Teacher professional development, technology, and communities of practice: Are we putting the cart before the horse? In S. Barab, R. Kling, and J. Gray (Eds.), Designing Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge University Press.
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., & Schank, P. (2002). Evolution of an on-line education community of practice. In K. A. Renninger and W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. NY: Cambridge University Press, 129-158.
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Tatar, D., Gray, J. & Fusco, J. (2002) Rich Social Interaction in an Online Community for Learning. In Electronic Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. January, 2002 (Bloomington CO)
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Fusco, J., Gehlbach, H., & Schlager, M. S., (2000). Assessing the impact of a large-scale online teacher professional development community. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference for the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, (pp. 2178-2183).
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Schank, P., Fenton, J., Schlager, M. S., & Fusco, J. (1999). From MOO to MEOW: Domesticating technology for online communities. In C. Hoadley (Ed.), Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 1999, pp. 518-526. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., & Schank, P. (1998, December). Cornerstones for an online community of education professionals. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Special Issue: Wired Classrooms: The Internet in K-12. (Editors: Foster and Ginsberg).
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., Schank, P., Hewson, P., Derry, S., Gance, L. L., & Nagel, L., (1998, April). Plywood walls and exposed pipes: Supporting a culture of learning in an on-line teacher professional development community. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Diego, CA.
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