The Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) consortium is a unique and groundbreaking opportunity in online education. The vision of WISE initiative is to "provide a collaborative distance education model that will increase the quality, access, and diversity of online education opportunities in library and information science." Leading library and information science schools are sharing courses to broaden the educational opportunities available to students. The WISE consortium enables its member schools to offer their students a wide array of special topics courses offered by other WISE member schools. Members schools choose which of their own courses are made available to the consortium, and which consortium courses are offered to their own students. WISE member schools also provide access to administrative, pedagogical, and technical support. Evidence of Effectiveness (or plan to obtain evidence): The project has demonstrated success with more institutions participating than originally targeted (13 as of 8/06). From Summer 2005-Summer 2006, 117 course sections have been offered to 168 students. The list of available courses indicates that a wide variety of courses are being made available to students. Several participating institutions are 'net consumers', gaining access to courses which they otherwise would not be able to offer. Almost three-quarters of student survey respondents indicated that the WISE course they took enhanced their overall program of study. WISE already has various measures in place for assessing program effectiveness. WISE has developed and refined a set of quality metrics and collects related data to support continuous quality improvement on the project level as well as to help its members make micro adjustments to particular courses in terms of design, delivery, assessment, etc. Administrator survey responses indicate that the WISE project clearly has resulted in broader use of online courses at member institutions and is starting to have a transformative effect on participating institutions. For instance, one administrator described WISE as a "testing ground for our University for some of the procedures that needed to be put into place – challenging but positive on the whole!" while another commented that WISE participation was "in line with our school’s philosophy of remaining on the cutting edge." Based in part on its success to date, the WISE consortium has has received a $936K, 3-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to fund "WISE+ Leveraging the Power of the Network to Increase the Diversity of LIS Curriculum." The grant will support partnerships between WISE member schools and professional library associations to increase course offerings in diverse or specialized areas of study, provide support and training for education in quality online pedagogy, and the creation of a digital learning object repository from the collection of WISE supported courses.