What’s in a name? “Ed Tech” program names

The “educational technology” field has had an identity crisis for a while (see Lowenthal and Wilson (2009) for a valuable discussion on this, which includes the following quote from Morgan, 1978, pp. 142): ““some would say that a discipline about whose name there is no certainty is no discipline at all, and educational technology has a variety of other labels—instructional systems development, instructional design, and, occasionally, educational engineering.”)

I’ve been discussing degree program names with my colleague Joan Hughes, and she suggested we look at program names to get a sense of how programs choose to view and define themselves. I thought that this was a great idea, but I also thought that degree program name changes were also valuable to look at. A few minutes of scavenging on the AECT website revealed the following information on degrees and programs/departments:

Florida State: Educational Psychology and Learning Systems (previous name: Instructional Systems)
University of Minnesota: Learning Technologies (previous name: Instructional Systems and Technology)
University of Georgia: Department of Educational psychology and Instructional Technology (IT merged with Ed Psych)
Georgia State University: Learning Technologies (previous name: Instructional Technology)
Purdue University: Learning Design and Technology (renamed: Fall, 2010: previous name: Educational Technology)
Indiana University:  Instructional Systems Technology   // Learning Sciences

These changes aren’t that surprising  given: (a) the increasing emphasis on learning (vs. instruction), (b) overlapping interests between educational psychology and instructional design, and (c) the rise of the learning sciences and learning design fields.

Do you know of any other name changes that may be relevant to this discussion?

Reference

Lowenthal, P., & Wilson, B. G. (2009). Labels DO Matter! A Critique of AECT’s Redefinition of the Field. TechTrends, 54(1), 38-46.