Dr. Ryan Rucker received a Doctor of Education degree in Curriculum and Instruction (2015) from Valdosta State University, a Master of Business Administration (2020) from Columbia Southern University, a Master of Library and Information Science (2016) from The University of South Carolina, a Master of Education (2009) in Educational Technology from The University of South Carolina-Aiken, and a Bachelor of Science (2007) in Technology Support and Training Management from The University of South Carolina. Also, he is a certified Quality Matters Peer Reviewer and Master Peer Reviewer, along with having an Online Teaching Certificate from the Online Learning Consortium. In his dissertation, Dr. Rucker researched faculty member’s patterns in teaching before and after a major learning management system (LMS) migration by investigating the overall levels of use of LMS tools within both systems. Additionally, the study investigated the challenges faculty members faced, and the level of support and training used by these faculty members during the migration.
For over ten years, Dr. Rucker worked in the Information and Instructional Technology fields at various higher education institutions. These capacities included serving as the Senior Instructional Designer (Center for Teaching Excellence at The University of South Carolina), Coordinator of Online Learning (Student Success Center at The University of South Carolina), Instructional Systems Analyst (Georgia Regents University), and Desktop Technician (University of South Carolina).
Today, Dr. Rucker teaches courses within educational technology, instructional design, and IT courses. In addition, he has taught undergraduate computer networking/programming/cyber security courses at The University of Florida, The University of Arizona, New England College, The University of South Carolina and Midlands Technology College, along with graduate educational research/technology courses at George Mason University and NC State University.
Dr. Rucker’s primary research interests are technology adoption among faculty members in higher education and effective course design and delivery. He has been using various learning management systems, such as Blackboard, Moodle, Desire2Learn, and Canvas, for over ten years and has provided technical support and training for these systems. In addition, he continuously speaks at conferences showing educators the benefits of using a LMS, the best practices within course design, and how to integrate various Web 2.0/3.0 tools into all learning environments.