FAQs
For questions specific to SUNY, please refer to the SUNY Online FAQs.
Q: What is the SUNY Online Teaching community?
- A: SUNY Online Teaching represents a vibrant community of online practitioners made up online teaching & learning faculty, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, librarians, technologists, & other staff. SUNY celebrates, connects, and nurtures effective online education practitioners across the SUNY system while furthering our knowledge of the most effective teaching and learning practices in online education. Our mission is to cultivate, support, and promote system-wide excellence in online teaching and learning through:
- Research and Innovation: Encourages scholarship in online teaching and learning practices to meet the needs of today’s diverse learners, and pursuing research-driven innovations that increase online teaching and learning effectiveness;
- Community of Practice: Engages and connects the community of online education experts across the SUNY system;
- Competency Development: Provides distinctive and comprehensive professional development opportunities to online practitioners directly, and in conjunction with their home campuses;
- Course Supports: Supports SUNY Online Signature Programs and SUNY Degrees at Scale programs with various tools and resources to ensure quality at the course, program and institutional levels.
Q: What does it mean to be an SUNY Online Fellow?
- A: The SUNY Online Teaching Community of Practice aims to leverage the expertise of our rich and vibrant community of online practitioners in a peer-to-peer network through formalizing roles that online educators have always played within their campus and the broader system community. By signing up for a role, online practitioners reaffirm their commitment to online-enabled education and gain membership as “SUNY Online Fellows.” With this membership, the we commit to support online practitioners on their online education journey, while those committing to these roles pledge to give back to the SUNY Online community. To learn more about these roles and the benefits of joining the SUNY Online Communities of Practice as a SUNY Online Fellow, visit the SUNY Online Teaching Community of Practice website. SUNY Online Fellows are asked to share their experience and expertise through roles that ensure they are recognized and supported by SUNY Online, campuses, and their peers. The SUNY Online Fellows program is open to all online learning practitioners and relies on self-nomination supported by a set of expectations to ensure SUNY Online Fellows can contribute effectively to the community. Read more about becoming a SUNY Online Fellow here. See who else is an Open SUNY Fellow and what roles they are in from across the system.
Q: What’s the OSCQR Online Course Quality Review rubric (OSCQR) all about?
- A: OSCQR is an openly-licensed dynamic 50-standard research-based online course quality rubric and process that includes a focus on the continuous improvement of online course design and accessibility, produces an action plan, assists with prioritization of improvements, estimates amount of time to make improvements, offers suggestions and examples for improvements, accommodates the addition of standards, and is designed to be used in multiple ways: as a self-assessment, by an instructional designer and in a team, or peer review process. The OSCQR rubric has been adopted by the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) as the online course quality scorecard in their suite of quality online scorecards and is available in .pdf format from OLC. A brief video overview of OSCQR.
Q: What kinds of professional development opportunities are available?
- A: Professional development paths are being developed to support the continuum of online practitioners from across the system and are available via the SUNY CPD.
The programs will support:- Online fundamentals and core competencies for those new to online teaching and learning.
- Continuous improvement of online course design and teaching practices.
- Advanced topics for experienced online practitioners.
Q: Are badges offered or other acknowledgement for Professional Development?
- A: We offer a comprehensive badging system for SUNY Online Teaching activities that acknowledge, recognize, honor, verify, certify, and authorize membership in the community of practice, achievement in professional development, and engagement in the community.
Q: How can we engage and connect with the SUNY Online Teaching Community?
- The SUNY Online Teaching unit supports and facilitates networking for those interested in online teaching and learning across the system. We offer numerous opportunities throughout the year to engage and connect.
- Join the SUNY Online Teaching Workplace group – open only to SUNY faculty and staff and requires SUNY authentication.
- If you are not yet a member of the SUNY Online Teaching community networking site, please join. Once a member, you can join the Community Call group. This site is open to anyone regardless of affiliation with SUNY.
Q: Do I have to pay for SUNY Online Teaching Supports, Services, and Resources?
- A: The SUNY Online Service Level Agreement details all the SUNY Online supports, services, resources, and associated costs. SUNY Online Teaching openly licenses and provides many events, online tools, and resources at no cost to faculty or campuses, and can provide custom quotes for specific faculty direct or course supports services upon request.
