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The SUNY DLE Course Templates

Written by CEN-PICKETAL on . Posted in Announcement, Instructional Design, project, teaching online.

SUNY Online has developed a set of course templates for 8 distinct use cases and instructional modalities that have been optimized specifically for the SUNY DLE Brightspace environment. Course templates are an important tool for faculty, instructional designers, and learners in digital learning environments. Embedding research-based effective practices and quality standards into course templates have been shown to positively influence:

  • Student retention and success.
  • Faculty satisfaction.
  • The ability for institutions to reach more students, use resources more effectively, and to be resilient in the face of changing circumstances.

The SUNY DLE Course Templates

Academic instructional modalities include: Online Asynchronous, Synchronous, Hybrid, Hyflex, Simple Structure, and to support Face-to-Face instruction.

Non-academic instructional modalities include:  Non-Credit content repository, and Non-Credit Interactive versions.

The SUNY DLE “templates” are published openly with a CC-By open license, and are free to use, adopt, or adapt by anyone interested, regardless of their affiliation with SUNY, or their LMS.

http://bit.ly/dletemplates

The SUNY DLE templates are research-informed and aligned with OSCQR online course quality standards in a task-based, linear, modular pedagogical design. They are also also optimized for accessibility and mobile devices. The SUNY DLE templates represent the best of what we know in terms of effective online course design, but as we all know, there are lots of ways to design effective online instructional environments and courses that meet evidence-based standards, or are well designed, but that are organized in other ways… As SUNY institutions range from community colleges to doctoral institutions, the templates will quick start faculty into pedagogically sound course designs that will work for most… and are designed to accommodate adaptation to meet specific disciplinary needs and use cases. 

In any course template, anything within the course content found in module areas, or course content/activities sections of the course are where academic freedom and the need for flexibility reside most. The spirit behind the use of a course template is not to control, or impose a cookie cutter approach to instruction. Our templates are intentionally designed to be flexible from the instructor’s perspective regarding the design of their instruction, while maintaining a course wrapper that is attentive to online learner needs for consistency in navigation and findability. Consistency at that level of the course design ensures the success of all learners in their digital learning environments across courses, departments, programs, institutions, and between SUNY institutions. The way that every instructor articulates and designs the structure of the course within their content, activities, and assessments, supports academic freedom, and results in every course being unique. Using the templates, digitally-enhanced courses can be designed by task, topic, time frame, as repositories, combinations of these approaches – and even by metaphorical areas! But, the course navigation and information wrapper provides consistency that supports the findability for sucessful learner user experiences.

The best citation I have found to support the case of consistency in navigation, and what they term “findability,” is Simunich, B., Robins, D. B., & Kelly, V. (2015). The Impact of Findability on Student Motivation, Self-Efficacy, and Perceptions of Online Course Quality. American Journal of Distance Education, 29(3), 174-185. This study found statistically significant declines in learner self-efficacy and motivation in learners in low-finability online courses. Since both self-efficacy and motivation influence are highly relevant to success in online learning, this result suggests that findaility is essential to learning in online environments. Additionally, learners in low-findability courses not only negatively judged the quality of the course itself, but the capability of the instructors to teach it. This is powerful evidence of the importance of findability and the need for consistency in elements of navigation in digital learning environments.

The SUNY DLE templates are research-informed, and aligned with the OSCQR rubric online course quality standards.

The research we have to support our design decisions in the task–based asynchronous template that we developed for the DLE Templates project is documented in that OSCQR alignment document for the asynchronous course. We have also produced a more general Rationale for Template Design Decisions document that documents each element in the templates, the associated OSCQR standard, and how that element in the template responds to specific standards. Specific research citations for each OSCQR standard are documented on the web page for each standard – see example: https://oscqr.suny.edu/standard3/.

Here is what our “templates” look like today.

SUNY DLE Course Template Resources: 

Designed & Published 8 OSCQR-informed free and openly licensed Brightspace course “templates” http://bit.ly/dletemplates

The SUNY DLE Templates workgroup:

  • The DLE Templates represents the contributions of 50+ individuals from across the SUNY system including distance learning directors, online instructional designers, faculty from various sectors and instructional modalities, workforce development staff, librarians, technologists, faculty developers, app developers, help desk staff, students.
  • The team was co-led by a representative of SUNY Online with expertise in instructional design and online teaching, and a campus instructional design leader.
  • The whole team and variations of the team met weekly from January 2022 – April 2024 to complete this work.
  • 3 versions of the templates were published.
  • Each version incorporated feedback from each cohort of 50+ SUNY campuses migrating to the SUNY Brightspace environment.
  • 3 rounds of surveys collected feedback from each of 4 cohorts of migrating campus, faculty, and student stakeholders.
  • Focus groups were held with campus staff, faculty, and student representatives.
  • A design engagement with the D2L design team provided feedback that was used to review and refresh the final template designs.

Recording of The Final Meeting of the SUNY DLE Templates Group – 4.17.24 Recording Files is available – for anyone that missed the meeting, or is interested in a wrap-up of the work of this group.

Project Co-Leads:
Alejandra M. Pickett – SUNY Online
 
Andrea Gilbert – Monroe Community College
. . . . .
Volunteer Workgroup Team Members:  
Adam Saunders Morrisville State College Kalief Metellu SUNY
Adara Wilczak Morrisville State College Kaitlyn Bertleff SUNY
Adrienne Dunham SUNY Online Karen Getman Mohawk Valley Community College
Allison Bond SUNY Canton Kathryn Bohan SUNY New Paltz
Allison Hosier University at Albany Kim Scalzo SUNY
Alena Rodick Empire State University Kristen Flint SUNY Upstate Medical University
Aman Kaur SUNY Kristina Maricle SUNY Cortland
Amy Moore University at Buffalo Kristy Bunton Stony Brook University
Amanda Miller Mohawk Valley Community College Laura Pierie Morrisville State College
Allison Hosier University at Albany Mary Hand SUNY Adirondack
Antonia Blatchford SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology Maya Bentz Farmingdale State College
Carine Surdey SUNY Broome Community College Michael Phillips SUNY Potsdam
Carol Meyer SUNY UCAWD Michelle Eichelberger SUNY
Chris Price SUNY Center for Professional Development Nina Santiago SUNY Online
Cori Dunagan SUNY Jamestown Community College Patrick Bennett Finger Lakes Community College
Diane Auerbach SUNY Peter Friesen SUNY Plattsburgh
David Cantaffa SUNY Richard McElrath SUNY New Paltz
David Scovil SUNY Canton R.J. Multari University at Buffalo
David Wolf SUNY Schenectady County Community College Robert Piorkowski SUNY Online
Doris Ostrander SUNY Adirondack Sal Chiera SUNY Online
Ed Beck SUNY Oneonta Shannon Pritting Empire State University
Harry Cargile SUNY Online Sherry Chisamore SUNY Uster
Irene Dascher SUNY Brooklyn Educational Opportunity Center Shirley Sinacore SUNY Sullivan
Jamie Heron SUNY Online Stephen Race SUNY Online
Jeff Dugan Finger Lakes Community College Sylvia Nicosia Farmingdale State College
Jeffrey Riman SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology Todd Gullo Monroe Community College
Jill Pippin SUNY Oswego Toni McCreash SUNY
John Locke SUNY Plattsburgh Tony DeFranco SUNY OER Services
John Dassatti SUNY Online Tricia Crissman SUNY Brockport
John Draeger Buffalo State University Yunkai Xu Morrisville State College

Brightspace, course templates, SUNY DLE, templates