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[[File:Donald P. Ely.png|thumb|415x415px|Donald P. Ely


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= Donald P. Ely =

Biography
Donald Paul Ely was born on Sept. 3, 1930, in Buffalo, N.Y.,  to Paul B. and Florence Fuller Ely. He had a career-long interest in establishing philosophical foundations and professional standards for the Educational Technology field, specializing in the area of audiovisual education and instructional technology.

Ely got married to Martha Spencer in 1952, and together they raised four sons, John, Mark, Scott and Christopher Ely. Dr. Ely’s professional life was rich and multifaceted. Although his focus was always on educational technology, his interested lied in the role that information technology played in education, many years before “IT” had become so prominent. He was an advocate for distance education and supported his students in implementing several national projects in the United States and other countries of the world. His leadership in the Association of Educational Communications and Technology guided many professionals to achieve outstanding positions in their respective organizations.

He was also the founder and long-time director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources. He had a career-long interest in establishing philosophical foundations and professional standards for the Educational Technology field–as indicated by his deep involvement in “definition” projects of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) from 1963 through 1994. Ely extended these interests internationally, consulting, teaching, and developing programs in The Netherlands, Chile, Peru, South Africa, Iran, and Indonesia. With his relentlessly positive, pastoral style he mentored generations of Educational Technology scholars and practitioners.

Donald Paul Ely, 84, died at home on September 24, 2014 after a long illness.

Education and Academic Career
He received his B. A. from SUNY Albany in 1951. Upon graduation, he commenced a long and distinguished career in the field of education, specializing in the area of audiovisual education/instructional technology. He began 40 years of fruitful endeavor as a professor at Syracuse University in 1956, where he was appointed full professor in 1970. He earned his master's degree and Ph.D. there in 1953 and 1961, respectively. Upon retiring from SU in 1995, he taught at Florida State University during the spring semester for several years.

Ely traveled the world as a consultant and professor, offering his expertise in Chile, Peru, Indonesia, the Netherlands and South Africa. He was the program director for dissemination at the National Science Foundation in Washington during a sabbatical in 1992-93. Among other honors, he received the Excellence in Teaching Award from his alma mater, Albany, in 1996, where he was acclaimed as “a pioneer” in instructional technology, who progressed with it “from the earliest audiovisuals to increasingly complex computer and satellite applications.” He authored numerous books and articles, including his 1971 book, “Teaching and Media: A Systematic Approach,” a seminal work in his field, which he co-authored with Vernon S. Gerlach.

He was a member of several professional organizations, and served on various editorial boards. Among his professional interests was the use of technology in libraries. He attended the White House Conference on Library and Information Services in 1991. He also served on the boards of the DeWitt Community Library and the Onondaga County Public Library.

Gerlach and Ely Instructional Design Model
The Gerlach and Ely model emphasizes the cycle nature of instructional design. It was developed by Vernon S. Gerlach and Donald P. Ely. The model can be described as a mix of linear and concurrent activities that contains several steps which are seen as simultaneous.

In education, the model is suitable for primary, secondary and tertiary levels and can be implemented with limited resources available to teachers. The model is most suitable for instructional planning and designing where objectives and content are predetermined. Both objectives and content are also synchronize and are the starting point of instruction. The model includes strategies for selecting and including multimedia during instruction. It is one of the few models that recognizes content orientation of many teachers. In the field of education, the model “has stood the test of time and has continued to serve the classroom teacher well”.

The central focus of the Gerlach & Ely model is on systematic planning, with equal emphasis on two essential factors of effective teaching: clearly defining teaching goals; and methods for reaching each of the desired learning outcomes. To that end, each of the ten elements defined within this model address one or more of these factors.


 * 1) Specification of Content
 * 2) Specification of Objectives
 * 3) Assessment of Entering Behaviors
 * 4) Determination of Strategy
 * 5) Organization of Groups
 * 6) Allocation of Time
 * 7) Allocation of Space
 * 8) Selection of Resources
 * 9) Evaluation of Performance
 * 10) Analysis of Feedback

Ely's Eight Conditions of Change
In 1976, Ely published a paper titled Creating the Conditions for Change that emphasized the importance of environmental conditions on the change process. Though this study specifically focused on the change process in libraries, in a subsequent study published in 1990 titled Conditions that Facilitate the Implementation of Educational Technology Innovations Ely presented a refined and generalized theory of the conditions of change that included implementing technology innovations in educational settings.

Ely's conditions of change theory focuses on factors outside of the innovation that exist in the change environment. This is in direct contrast to Roger's theory of diffusion that examines the internal attributes of an innovation.

Ely was the first to theorize that there is more to the successful implementation and adoption of change than the inherent qualities of the innovation. There are socio-environmental conditions that impact the implementation of the change process. In his first study (1976) Ely focused on "the impact of environmental factors on the extent which members of a social system were psychologically ready to consider change" (Ellsworth, 2000, p 40). Deviating from conventional wisdom Ely believed that regardless of the quality of the innovation, certain socio-environmental conditions of change were necessary for the change effort as whole to succeed.

In his later study (1990) Ely listed eight conditions of change which when present in the context of a particular change process created an optimal change environment for the successful implementation and adoption of technological innovations. Ely himself, however, recognized that not all eight conditions of change may exist in every change environment. (Ely, 1990). As a result, these can perhaps be seen more as suggestions for successful implementation of change rather than a strict proscription of conditions without which the change process is doomed to failure. Though Ely does make plain that "the absence of any condition(s) will probably reduce the effectiveness of the implementation process... the goal is to attain each of the eight conditions during the implementation" (Ely, 1990, pp. 301-302). A brief summary of Ely's condition of change are listed below :

== Publications and Books ==