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History of SLN

Written by CEN-PICKETAL on . Posted in archive, archived SLN: history, archived: SLN.

The SUNY Learning Network (SLN) –  A Little History

The SUNY Learning Network was originally housed at Empire State College (ESC). President Jim Hall and ESC Center for Learning and Technology Director Lowell Roberts had dual roles at ESC and SUNY system and wrote the original Sloan grant with system admin staff Richard Dressner. Sloan grants (there were 3 or 4 of them) totaled 4.1 million dollars. I believe this was their largest cumulative donation ever. Frank Mayadas (and Ralph Gomery) was always a strong supporter and ally to SLN.

Time Line

  • 1994-95 – research & development period with grant funds.
    Objective: what works?
    The first Sloan grant in 1994-95 – R&D one year  – initially/briefly called MHRLN (Mid Hudson Regional Learning Network).
    The first 2 campuses were ESC and New Paltz (with teams of faculty from Dutchess, Ulster, Rockland, Sullivan) Courses were ESC and New Paltz courses though, the teams did not really work.
    Lowell Roberts – First Director of SLN, Empire State College/SUNY System Admin.
    Evelyn Ting – Assistant Director
    Bob Pirelli – Network Administrator and first Enterprise LMS architect
    Larry Greenberg – Lotus Notes Applications Developer
    Alexandra M. Pickett – First SUNY online faculty developer/instructional designer.
  • 1995-99 – synthesis of models processes & procedures, infrastructure, resources, supports and services.
    Objective:  will it scale?
    Fall 1995 – First courses offered via SLN via Lotus Notes groupware platform for both faculty and students (replicate- work- replicate).

    • Fall 1995 – 4 courses 58 students
    • Spring 1996 – 4 courses 62 students119 students for the academic year 95/96.

    Fall 1996 – First courses offered via SLN on beta netscape web via Notes/Domino. Students via web browser/faculty via Lotus Notes.

    Fall 1996 – first online course template implemented designed by Larry Greenberg and Alexandra M. Pickett.

    1996 – Faculty development and course design processes was formalized and implemented for large-scale consistency and quality. Included research-based templates and course quality rubric/checklists.

    1996 – the role of the MID – Multimedia Instructional Designer was formally defined. Evolved to Instructional Designer in 2006.

    1. Ruffin Pauzak (Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1996-1998)
    2. Mingming Jiang (Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1996-1998)
    3. Bill Jones – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network Jan 1998 – Jan 1999
    4. Peter Shea – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1997-1998,
    5. Tisha Bender – Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1997 – 2000
    6. Steve Mann – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1996-2018
    7. Rob Piorkowski – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1996-2004, SUNY COTE Assistant Director, and SUNY Online Assistant Director 2008-present
    8. John Prusch – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 2000-2006
    9. Rick Costanza – Multimedia Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 1999 – 2006
    10. Paul McLean – Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 2006 – 2009
    11. Caroline Manssino – Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network 2006 – 2009
    12. Phylise Banner – Senior Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network Sep 2008 – Jan 2010
    13. Dave Ghidiu Senior Instructional Designer Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence Jun 2014 – Aug 2016
    14. Annie Shibbata, Senior Instructional Designer Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence Jun 2014 – May 2015
    15. Dan Feinberg, Senior Instructional Designer SUNY Learning Network / Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence Assistant Director of Planning and Operations for COTE
    16. Erin Maney, Senior Instructional Designer for Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence (COTE), Aug 2013 – Aug 2017
  • Campus-based Admins and Instructional Designers
    • To scale the SLN program we devised the campus – based instructional designer and campus admin roles and community. The admins worked with SLN as the point of contact for administrative and communications aspects of the program. They were the campus liaison with the SLN program administrators to generate course shells, identify faculty for training and distribute/ensure communications and timelines were distributed and adhered to. Tammy Mooney, Office manager for SLN coordinated the work with all campus admins in SLN on all admin aspects of the project.
    • When a campus achieved 20+ courses and new online faculty to be trained the campus was encouraged to assign/hire a dedicated resource to be responsible for co-training and supporting their new and existing online faculty. Campus IDs were trained by SLN and considered extended staff. Weekly meetings and communications kept all IDs on the same schedule and in relative lock step for online faculty development, training, and course development. Monthly meetings, term-based cyclic activities and communications and events evolved to keep everyone on course in all efforts to jointly and collaboratively prepare all online faculty and their courses in the program.  Bill Pelz, Herkimer, Bob Yavitz, TC3 and Terry Keys MCC – were the first Campus based online instructional designers.
    • Bill Pez was recruited and trained to be the lead new online faculty trainer for SLN from 1998-2015.
  • 1998 – first annual SLN SOLsummit – annual conference for online instructional designers and directors of online learning.  (there have been 24 annual summits to present day.)
  • 1998 – SLN and ESC/CLT separated. Alexandra M. Pickett became assistant director of the SLN program at that time.
  • 1998 – SLN began a systematic longitudinal research agenda using the CoI framework to further our understanding of how people learn well online and used to inform practice. That research continues today with Dr. Peter Shea/Ualbany.
  • 1999-06 full-scale production.
    Objective: institutionalization
    2000-2001 – SLN hosted the Sloan funded ALN invitation-only Summer workshops at the Sagamore in Lake George.
  • 2006-09 – migration and evolution.
    Objective: sustainability 2006- 2009 – Migration from Lotus Notes to ANGEL
    Estimated 5,000 faculty trained. 10% on SUNY faculty have been through the SLN faculty development process.2009 – in the last month of our migration to ANGEL BB buys ANGEL
  • 2009-2013 – Growth
    2009-2013 – Bb contract and migration planning.
  • 2013-2017 – Open SUNY (under Chancellor Nancy Zimpher)
    2013-2018 – migration to Bb
  • 2017-2020 – SUNY Online (under Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson)
  • 2020 – present – SUNY Online (interim Chancellor and Provost),  John B. King Jr.(December 2022)
    Migration to D2L/Brightspace – Digital Learning Environment

SLN Leadership:

1994 – Lowell Roberts (Co-PI of the Sloan grant also held the title of Assistant Provost at SUNY System Administration under Jim Hall who was also president of ESC, he had a Vice Chancellor role at SUNY System Administration). Richard Dressner was the System office staff person – also Co-PI)

Rich Dressner was the other PI on the grant from Sys Admin. He was fired.

1995 – Greg Benson was the next Director and he hired Eric Fredericksen and  Tammy Mooney in 1996.

1996 – 9/25/2002- Eric Fredericksen, SLN director

1998 – 2006  Alexandra M. Pickett, SLN Assistant Director

2002 – Peter Shea, interim director SLN

2003 – 2005 Peter Shea, director SLN

2003 – 2005 David Porush SLN Executive Director

2005 Tammy Mooney and Alexandra M. Pickett were briefly interim co-associate directors of SLN. When Peter Shea left for a faculty position in the University at Albany Education Department.

2005 – 2006 Ken Udas, SLN Director

2006 –  2015 – Carey Hatch, Interim Director SLN

2006 – 2015 Alexandra M. Pickett, Associate Director SLN

2015 – (present)  Kim Scalzo, Open SUNY Executive Director, now SUNY Online Executive Director

2015 – 2018 Alexandra M. Pickett, Director Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence

2018 – (present) Alexandra M. Pickett, Director, Open SUNY Online Teaching, now Director SUNY Online Teaching

SLN Awards

National recognition for research and innovation in online teaching and learning effectiveness, faculty and student satisfaction, faculty development, and online course management system and interface.

1. In recognition of the exponential growth in online learning, the Sloan ALN Consortium (Sloan-C) granted its first annual awards for excellence in Web-based education. In November 2001 the first Sloan-C award for Excellence in ALN Faculty Development was given to the SUNY Learning Network, representing the online courses and programs of more than fifty institutions, ranging from community colleges to research universities, in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. At that time the staff of the SUNY Learning Network   provided comprehensive training to a diverse group of faculty that went on to effectively teach online courses that enrolled approximately 25,000 students this that academic year.

2. The 2002 Sloan-C award for Excellence in Institution-Wide ALN Programming was presented to the State University of New York Learning Network (SLN) in November 2002.  The primary goal of the SUNY Learning Network is to bring SUNY’s diverse, high-quality instructional programs within the reach of learners everywhere. In the 2001-02 academic year, the SUNY Learning Network enabled more than 40,000 student enrollments in 2,500 online courses. The fifty-five SUNY campuses participating in the SUNY Learning Network now offer fifty-five complete online degree and certificate programs.

3. In October 2001, The State University of New York’s online learning program, the SUNY Learning Network (SLN), received special recognition from EDUCAUSE, the nation’s leading organization aimed at promoting the intelligent use of information technology. EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association, bestowed its Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning in 2001 to the SLN, one of the nation’s premier online higher education initiatives.  The award recognizes higher education programs and practices that use information technologies to support learner-centered teaching and learning in ways that are “transformative, sustainable, and replicable.”

4. Sloan-C award in online teaching 2003 – William Pelz, Herkimer County Community College. Lead new faculty trainer for SLN.

5. USDLA 21st Century Best Practice Award – Online Technology – Higher Education 2006

6. NUTN Distance Education Innovation Award 2009 – for the SLN teaching presence survey.

7. Sloan-C 2010 Effective Practice Award – acknowledges SLN for advancing learning, access, scale, and student and faculty satisfaction.

Link to all SLN, Open SUNY, and SUNY Online awards to date. 

Recognition

Sloan C Fellows/ Online Learning Consortium Fellows from SUNY

Recognition as an OLC Fellow is one of unusual professional distinction and is conferred by the OLC Board of Directors upon members of the Online Learning Consortium who have:

  • Outstanding qualifications in the field of online learning
  • Significant experience in online learning or an allied field
  • A record of distinguished service to OLC and/or the field
  • Extraordinary leadership in the field of online learning
    • Meg Benke (2010 – inaugural class): “For innovative and inspirational work in the creation, design, and evaluation of online student services and for sustained advocacy for online learning on a national scale.”
    • Peter J. Shea (2011): “For outstanding research that has advanced our understanding of online learning and for noteworthy contributions to the field of online education.”
    • Alexandra M. Pickett (2012): “For innovation and vision in conceptualizing and implementing high-quality faculty development programs and course design and delivery processes.”
    • Eric E. Fredericksen (2013): “For exceptional national leadership in the development and advancement of online learning and for distinguished service to the Online Learning Consortium.”
    • Bill Pelz (2013): “For distinguished service to faculty development that is deeply rooted in his extraordinary enthusiasm for and belief in online teaching and learning.”

 

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