Burks Oakley II is an Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois.  His areas of interest include distance education, outreach, and instructional technologies on all three campuses of the University of Illinois (Chicago, Springfield, Urbana-Champaign).  Oakley also holds appointments as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the Departments of Computer Science and Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and in the School of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Through his innovative use of technology in teaching, Professor Oakley has earned a national reputation as a practitioner and promoter of Internet-based asynchronous learning environments.  In the past four years, he has given more than one hundred invited talks at national conferences and on university campuses.  He continues to inspire faculty and administrators as director of the University of Illinois Online initiative, a program designed to facilitate the development and delivery of University of Illinois courses, degrees, and public service resources over the Internet.

Oakley received his B.S. degree from Northwestern University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan.  He has received numerous awards for his teaching and for his innovative use of technology in education, including the Luckman Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from UIUC in 1993, the Outstanding Teacher Award from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in 1993, the Educom Medal in 1996, the Educational Activities Board Major Educational Innovation Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1996, the Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Education Society in 1998, the Third Millennium Medal from the IEEE in 2000, the Engineering Alumni Society Merit Award from the University of Michigan in 2003, and the Sloan-C Award for the "Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Teaching and Learning by an Individual" in 2003.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ASEE, and a former Vice President of the ASEE.

Bio text pulled from: http://www.online.uillinois.edu/oakley/biosketch.html