SUNY Oswego has been an active participant in online learning since 1996 and was one of the early adopters of the SUNY Learning Network. SUNY Oswego features biomedical informatics certificates and soon a Master’s program on OpenSUNY. Technology serves as a catalyst for innovation and efficiency in all domains of society, causing a high-demand for technology-infused educational offerings. However interdisciplinary programs have to nurture innovative pedagogy to cross discipline boundaries. This project proposes to create, with SUNY Upstate, online open educational resources (OERs) as a source for a cascade of educational offerings to serve diverse learners in interdisciplinary fields with a test-bed focus on biomedical data science. These OERs and corresponding MOOC-like course offerings will be intertwined with academic programs to improve access, completion, and success. Learning analytics will be deployed to track student-learning outcomes. The proposed model will be disseminated and made replicable to other interdisciplinary and/or technology-infused domains.

Our project provides a series of three MOOC-like courses, one being offered by Coursera, that learners can take to complete a certificate and receive an award of completion in Biomedical Data Analysis at an affordable cost. The access to the Big Data, Genes, and Medicine course in particular has expanded our educational reach to an amazing worldwide audience of currently 4,078 learners of varied backgrounds and socio-economic status.

Project Outcome Report