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Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All

Written by CEN-PICKETAL on . Posted in partnerships, project.

SUNY Online has partnered with the Cal State Los Angeles (LA), Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (Cal State LA CETL) and the CSU Chancellor’s Office, and the California Community College Virtual Campus, to infuse DEI into Online Course Quality for all.


Overview

This project is a collaboration between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) experts, and online education and online faculty experts, and staff from 66 institutions and organizations from across the country, and 2 institutions from Canada and Brazil, to review, write, and annotate a set of openly-licensed freely available DEI annotations associated with the current major online course quality rubrics.

Targeting online teaching and learning environments, the DEI annotations, will assist institutions, instructional designers, and faculty inform, influence, and ensure equitable, diverse, and inclusive online teaching and learning environments.

Starting with the 54 Cal State inclusive teaching practices, this group will adapt them to the online teaching and learning environment and annotate them with specific practices, suggestions, and recommendations for implementing them in online instruction.

An additional outcome of this project will be to categorize and organize the resulting annotations and align them with current online course quality rubrics, such as OSCQR, COLT, and QM. The annotations will be openly licensed, freely available, and will be dynamically presented based on the categories and standards of specific online quality rubrics.

A parallel activity for the SUNY participants in this project will be to incorporate the DEI annotated practices into the OSCQR rubric. The DEI inclusive online teaching practices will be aligned with OSCQR standards and categories and will serve as a resource to support the work of online IDs, faculty, and their institutions to meet the SUNY DEI strategic mission to become leaders and champions of equitable, diverse, and inclusive education. This next version of the DEI-informed OSCQR rubric is tentatively expected to be release in Fall 2023.

By building DEI awareness in our existing communities of online practitioners at campus, online instructional designer (ID), and online faculty levels, and by providing them with information and suggestions for practical DEI-informed online inclusive teaching practices, we can ensure, support, and contribute to DEI efforts in online teaching and learning activities across the system.

Project Status/Progress:

  • The 54 Cal State LA inclusive teaching practices are being reviewed and adapted for the online teaching and learning environment and aligned with the major online quality rubrics.
  • 64 institutions expressed initial interest in collaborating/participating in this project to annotate the practices.
  • 13 workgroups were formed with 60 individuals representing 3 areas of expertise: DEI, Online instructional design, online faculty.
  • 68 institutions are currently represented in workgroups that are drafting the annotations.
  • 11 SUNY representatives are participating in the project representing each institutional sector and the 3 areas of expertise from UAlbany, Stony Brook, SUNY Delhi, ESC, Genesee, SUNY COIL, Nassau, Schenectady, SUNY Online, and SUNY System DEI office.
  • In October, three month-long writing sprints will have been completed by the workgroups, and we anticipate that there are at least 2 sprints remaining to complete the 1st draft annotations of all the practices.
  • About 55% (30/54) of the DEI practices have been revised/annotated/drafted to date.
  • Categorizing and organizing the practices according to various rubrics has begun.
  • Editing to review and finalize the annotations is planned.
  • Preparation of the platform to publish, promote, and distribute the annotated DEI practices aligned with rubrics is tentatively targeting Spring 2023, and is in progress.
  • Local and national presentations have been made:
    • Panel: WCET Virtual Summit Elements of Quality Digital Learning – Panel on Online Quality Frameworks and Rubrics, April 2022.
    • Presentation: “Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All” on our DEI online inclusive teaching practices collaboration project. At the Peralta Equity Conference in April 2022.
  • Additional webinars, national presentations, and badges are planned for this project once we have the annotations completed and perhaps edited.
    • Presentation: Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All, OLC Accelerate 2022 , November , 2022 (virtual conference)
    • Presentation: Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All, OLC Accelerate 2022, November, 2022 (onsite conference in Orlando, FL).
  • These annotated online DEI practices will be openly licensed and made freely available under a cc-by license.

 

 

Learn more about the Annotations Framework:

Visit the platform hosting the annotations framework to view sample annotations, and the DEI Collaborative website for updates and more information.

If you would like to join this project, or be kept informed, let us know.

Project Co-Leads:

Project Partner sites:

SUNY Online Teaching: Resources supporting access, equity & equality

Updated March 2023

dei, diversity, equity, inclusion, quality