Hello! I’m excited to introduce myself, Allene Slating, as the new Senior Instructional Designer on the SUNY Online Teaching team.

My journey in online education began by teaching English to learners around the world, primarily in support of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The 6th annual SUNY Online Summit was held as an in-person & virtual event from February 26 – 28, 2025. This was the 26th annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice.

Links to the recordings and materials from all the presentations are available: https://online.suny.edu/summit/live-recordings/

The SUNY Online Teaching Fellows program is open to anyone. For members of our SUNY community there are a number of self-selected roles that you can review to choose which role would be best for you. For friends and colleagues outside the SUNY system, the Friend of SUNY role is designed especially for you. Our community of online practitioners is enriched by individuals from non-SUNY contexts.

In the evolving world of online nursing education, discussion boards remain a key site for learner engagement, reflection, and clinical reasoning. But how do educators ensure that these discussions are meaningful, equitable, and aligned with learning outcomes?

I’m thrilled to introduce myself as the newest graduate student intern here at SUNY Online. My name is Lin Lin, and I’m currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Communication at the University at Albany, specializing in Organizational Communication. I’m especially interested in the communicative constitution of reality—how communication shapes organizations, power dynamics, identities, as well as work-life interfaces, etc.

As we move further into 2025, online learning continues to evolve—shaped by shifting learner expectations, advances in technology, and increasing demands for flexibility, equity, and workforce relevance. SUNY Online’s latest Environmental Scan offers a wide-lens view of these dynamic forces and outlines how the SUNY system is poised to lead in this critical space.

Would an OSCQR certification help you with your online course quality initiatives? Are you an online instructional designer (ID)? Are you new at it, or do you have years of experience? Are you an online instructor? Are you new at it, or do you have years of experience teaching online?

Adding motivational messages is one pedagogical device used in well-designed self-paced instructional environments to keep learners engaged. I would say that these types of devices are typical in some MOOC platforms and high end corporate training.

In an online lecture-based course (synchronous or asynchronous), the online instructor will typically record and post voice over lecture slides in the LMS, and a handful of check-in activities with learners to ensure that everyone is making sense of the concepts and content.

SUNY Maritime, SUNY Oneonta, Nassau Community College & the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Venezuela, together with the SUNY Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Center & SUNY Online, have designed a set of COIL+OSCQR standards that have been incorporated into the OSCQR rubric.

I was recently asked for resources and suggestions related to online engineering/computer science courses.

I have put together some discipline specific resources – this one is for Science, Math and STEM. It is a collaborative doc, so if you have anything to add – feel free. ☺

Close to 30 years ago, I designed the first SUNY Learning Network online course template.We called it a “template” because, as I explained to new online faculty at the time, calling it “Fred,” just didn’t have enough contextual detail to make sense. 🙂

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:

A good online course starts with well-articulated learning objectives. Content and activities are then designed to target those objectives specifically, and optimized to leverage the online environment to foster deep engagement, interaction, collaboration and ways that online learners can make their thinking and

SUNY Online national DEI project selected for the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report 2024

The SUNY DEI for All (#DEI4All) project has been selected as an exemplar to be highlighted in the Educause 2024 HorizonReport | Teaching & Learning Edition. Exemplar projects are the heart of the Horizon Report.

The 5th annual SUNY Online Summit was held as an in-person & virtual event from February 28 – 29, 2024. This was the 25th annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice & the 30th anniversary of Online Education at SUNY.

Open Education Week is an annual celebration and opportunity for those working in Open Education across SUNY to actively share their achievements and learn about what others are achieving worldwide. 

I was asked recently about what kinds of activities we at SUNY Online recommend for online instructors to use to support successful online engagement, interaction, and more specifically peer-to-peer online interaction?

 The SUNY Online course quality rubric – OSCQR, can assist you in understanding RSI and how to address it.

National Distance Learning Week – November 6-10, 2023
National Distance Learning Week, sponsored by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), is hosted annually with a virtual, week-long series of webinars meant to:

It may be that you equate asynchronous online teaching and learning (rich, engaging, interactive cohorts of learners guided by a “present” instructor) with self-paced online learning (individual, no interaction, no instructor presence, summative feedback that may or may not be automated, or timely) – that is an assumption to check, and NOT necessarily the case.

If you are teaching at a SUNY then chances are you are using Brightspace or are about to switch to this new LMS. I will show you a few options for your Brightspace courses that I use (a lot) and hope it benefits you and your students!

First from an instructor perspective it is handy to know ways to input due dates for your assignments. There is more than one method to enter due dates in Brightspace but one of my favorite features of this LMS is how quickly I can manage the dates of all assignments.

The Value of Rubrics: Closing the Loop on Expectations and Learner Performance

Online learners consistently point to a recurring theme in successful learning experiences … clearly understanding an instructor’s expectations improves their performance. Clarity of expectations in online teaching is a universal best practice in online teaching and learning. We (ID’s and instructors) strive to communicate to students as clearly as possible in regard to instructions, grading policies, course navigation, course resources, etc. 

Our colleagues at the University of Central Florida have recently posted to TOPkit an article on AI opportunities in education that presents considerations for approaching AI as a tool that can be leveraged for learner engagement.

Are you thinking about badging for your unit, organization, or community of practice?

• To support aspects and activities within your your community.
• Improve engagement.
• Promote roles and identity within the community.
• Recognize and reward contributions.
• Acknowledge achievements and accomplishments.
• Incentivize behaviors

SUNY institutions have been innovating, developing, and delivering courses and programs online for more than 25 years.

The 4th annual SUNY Online Summit was held as an in-person & virtual event from March 8 – March 10, 2023. This was the 24th annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice.

Links to the recordings and materials from all the presentations are available: https://online.suny.edu/summit/live-recordings/

Event photos are available: http://bit.ly/SUNYonlinesummit.

I feel excited about chatGPT and figuring out how to leverage it for academic, professional, instructional and personal purposes.

Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic period, it seems clear that while we made a valiant attempt at remote learning, our attempts were met with limited success.

National Distance Learning Week – November 7-11, 2022
SUNY Online was pleased to host and showcase the following dynamic presentations in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) 2022. National Distance Learning Week, sponsored by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), is hosted annually with a virtual, week-long series of webinars meant to:

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.

SUNY Online Teaching develops tools, services, and resources all openly licensed to help SUNY campus leaders, IDs, faculty, and others, do their jobs a little more efficiently, effectively and better.

The SUNY Online Community celebrates the life and contributions of our friend and colleague,
Diane Hamilton (1965-2022)

I often hear concerns (and complaints) from online instructional designers and distance learning leaders about “getting faculty to do their part while teaching.” That faculty often “do not respond to questions, don’t post appropriate announcements, don’t engage in discussions, and don’t give substantial, personalized feedback to their online students.”

You may be thinking that you have enough to worry about right now so why start creating with a new tool?! Well, this tool is worth it, at least in my opinion. 

Do you want to add some spark to the way your students view your course content?

This is a parody/tongue-in-cheek look at effective online teaching practices, tips, and suggestions based on the SUNY Learning Network’s experiences in effective online teaching and learning, online faculty development, and online course design. Published originally February 9, 2007.

Using the Medium Effectively

Knowing how to effectively use social media is a desired skill set for those who work in online education.

Using social media tools one can:

The 3rd annual SUNY Online Summit was held as an exclusively virtual event for the second time from February 28 – March 4, 2022. This was the 23rd annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice.

Open Education Week is an annual celebration of achievements in Open Education and an opportunity for  sharing and learning about open initiatives across our SUNY campuses and globally through Open Education Global.

What will impact us in 2022? At the end of a year, it is a good practice to reflect and scan your environment to see what is happening, or what might be on the horizon, that might impact your work. SUNY Online is doing some strategic planning, and here is what I can see as possibly having some import, or impact on online teaching and learning in the new year and beyond.

If you haven’t seen this, I wanted to share it and thought the report might be of interest.

It is a report on global trends and insights in online student supports from Instructure. But the report findings are good/interesting.

How much is too much? How much is enough? Do I have a course and a half? What about studio and lab courses? How do I know?

These are questions that online faculty and online instructional designers grapple with when designing online instruction.

SUNY Online is  Pleased to Announce the Release of OSCQR 4.0!

A new version of OSCQR has been released. OSCQR 4.0 has been updated to reflect and support the regarding requirements for Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) in all online/distance education courses for financial aid purposes that went into effect on July 1. This updated version of OSCQR is the first online course quality rubric that specifically addresses the new ED  regulation requirements for “Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)” in the design of online courses.

I would like to share with you all our openly licensed tools and resources that you can find here: https://online.suny.edu/onlineteaching/online-competency-development/self-paced-and-self-serve-training/

National Distance Learning Week – November 8-12, 2021
SUNY Online is pleased to host and showcase the following dynamic presentations in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) 2021. Webinar slides and recordings will be listed below each session.

SUNY Online Teaching seeks nominations for exemplar online courses to use as model courses for observation for new incoming online faculty.

We have developed and provided online course “templates” since the 1996.

Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)*  & OSCQR WorkGroup

New regulatory definitions of distance education require that institutions ensure regular and substantive interaction (RSI) between a student and an instructor(s).

SUNY Online Teaching Monthly Webinar Series
As campuses planned for an uncertain and unprecedented academic year in 2020-2021, SUNY Online
continued its commitment to supporting campuses by providing resources and services around online teaching
and learning.

My approach to engaging faculty in becoming online instructors has been to stimulate their imaginations about the new instructional strategies available to them in this different mode of teaching. Graded discussion forums unlock a new and powerful instructional strategy that is not readily feasible in traditional face-to-face classrooms. 

I was recently asked “Do online programs have unique assessment needs, or can we just use the learning objective’s for traditional programs?”

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Innovate conference was held virtually from March 15-19th, 2021.

You can find my full report here, including links, resources, notes, slides, screenshots, an key thoughts, take-aways, and actions.

The 2nd annual SUNY Online Summit was held as an exclusively virtual event for the first time on February 22-26, 2021. This was the 22nd annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice.

Do you have multiple windows open on your screen? Maybe with multiple tabs on each window? Do you ever have so many tabs open that you can’t even decipher the names of the tabs or what they are? Is it just me?

SUNY Online is pleased to host and showcase several presentations from our SUNY campuses in celebration of Open Education Week March 1-5, 2021. Open Education Week is an annual celebration, and an opportunity for actively sharing and learning from each other.

SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors are nominated annually by their SUNY campus as exemplary online educators who are enthusiastic and effective in online teaching, and who can be positive and strong advocates for online teaching in our SUNY community. SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors contribute to the SUNY Online Teaching Community of Practice in a variety of ways that showcase their expertise and support their peers.

National Distance Learning Week – November 9-13, 2020
SUNY Online is pleased to host and showcase the following presentations in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) 2020. Webinar slides and recordings are listed below each session.

Now more than ever, we should consider adding videos to our courses. Aside from students wanting to feel a connection to an instructor from a remote or online environment, videos are a powerful tool to present information and engage students. Many instructors are teaching remotely this Fall 2020 semester and may be new to creating videos to post on their course site.

New Support Service Launched

In response to requests identified in May 2020 via the SUNY Online Fall 2020 Campus Support Needs Survey, the Open SUNY Online Teaching unit has launched a Fall 2020 Remote Online Faculty Drop-in Support service. We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with  colleagues and faculty at Columbia-Greene Community College and SUNY FIT, who have contracted with us for these services.

Report on the emergency SUNY Online Faculty Drop-in Sessions

Overview of the Live Faculty Remote Teaching Instructional Design Drop-in Services provided by Open SUNY/SUNY Online to provide live instructional design support to any SUNY faculty/campus needing extra support during the emergency pivot to remote online instruction from 03/13/2020 – 05/29/2020.

The Online Teaching unit of SUNY Online developed a Remote Teaching Checklist. The checklist serves as a template of essential elements for courses being taught virtually to help newly online instructors prepare their courses. The checklist aligns to OSCQR Online Course Quality standards.

Online Teaching and COVID-19

COVID-19 has disrupted our lives, there is no question. We have had to forge new methods of coping with stress, responding to crisis and developing new work/life balances.

SUNY’s COVID-19 Response

 

The 1st annual SUNY Online Summit was held on February 26-28, 2020 at the SUNY Global Center in New York City.

This was the 21st annual gathering of the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice.

SUNY’s COVID-19 Response

Additional links to resources & information that may be helpful:

In partnership with SUNY FACT2 we are pleased to host and showcase several presentations from our SUNY campuses in celebration of Open Education Week, March 2-6, 2020. Presentations represent the SUNY FACT2 Open Pedagogy task group and SUNY CIT Open Education track.

National Distance Learning Week – November 4-8, 2019
Open SUNY is pleased to host and showcase the following presentations in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) 2019. Registration is not required for these free webinars. Webinar slides and recordings are listed below each session.

During the Spring of 2018, my administration asked me to offer the College’s first fully-online science lab course so that our students enrolled in the online degree programs could complete the lab science course requirement.

Let’s be honest; most of us judge a book by its cover. Similarly, students will have a reaction to the look and feel of our online courses. Most learning management systems have themes, an option to add a banner, and other colors choices to offer instructors some customization. I use pre-made themes and then further customize colors to create a distinctive look.

The use of open-access resources is a growing trend in education. OER include any teaching material (i.e., syllabi, lesson plans, worksheets, videos, games, readings, textbooks, applications, etc.) that is available free of charge to anyone with permission to reuse, revise or redistribute.