Open SUNY Update

University at Buffalo - March 21, 2013Associate Provost Carey Hatch

SUNY’s Online Environment • SUNY is a nationally recognized leader in online

learning through the SUNY Learning Network (SLN) and Empire State College

– 35 campuses opt into SLN to support their online efforts

• The SLN Online Course Finder is available to all campuses to list their online courses

• Regional Campus Consortia are forming to promote collaborative degree programs

SUNY’s Online Environment • From a system perspective, online degree

program growth is modest:

• 95 Associate degree programs

• 41 Bachelor’s degree programs (28 at Empire State)

• 20 Master’s degree programs

• Data suggests online graduates are electing to attend private institutions to continue studies

Open SUNY• Provides, encourages and leverages:

– New online courses;– New targeted degree programs;– Improved avenues for degree completion; – Open access to SUNY created instructional content;

and– Comprehensive student and faculty support

services. – Knowledge and expertise of SUNY faculty and campuses

already invested in online learning

– Mechanisms to enable institutions to strategically enter the online environment

Open SUNY - Policy Implications• Financial Aid

– The Office of the Provost, in concert with SUNY’s Student Financial Aid team, will coordinate the creation of a financial aid consortium of all 64 campuses

– Allows a student to take up to 50% of their course work from any institution within the Consortia to receive full financial aid from their home campus

– Course cross listing options

– IT systems are being transformed to support seamless, cross campus, student learning SUNY-wide.

Open SUNY - Policy Implications

• The Office of the SUNY Provost will collaborate with campuses to identify/offer high needs online degree programs

– These programs will not necessarily require a host campus to develop all the necessary courses to confer a degree

– University-wide consortia agreements will facilitate financial aid and articulation agreements with the student’s home campus

Open SUNY - Policy Implications

• Open Education Resource Development

– SUNY is encouraging faculty and campuses to openly license instructional content produced for educational purposes

– IITG Funded e-Textbook Pilot

– SUNY Learning Commons

– SUNY Digital Repository

– Non-SUNY Resources (e.g., MERLOT)

Open SUNY - Policy Implications

• Campus Support

– The Office of the Provost will provide financial and programmatic support to campuses for the development of Open SUNY resources

– Revenue models are being developed to illustrate campus based incentives

Open SUNY Online Advisory Team

• Chancellor Accepted All Recommendations:

– Assessment of Prior Learning

– Exploration of Creation and/or consumption of MOOCs

– Expanding research of Online Teaching & Learning

– Promotion of Innovation and Academic Excellence to reduce student cost, debt and time to degree.

• Build capacity through Open Access Journals, Open Education Resources (OER), Open Textbooks, and Open Courseware

Broadening the Conversation

• Understanding Campus Needs

– Wide variance in campus level support for online course and program development

– Exploring how Office of the SUNY Provost can assist campus-based efforts

– Expanding service and software contracts to provide students and faculty with a richer and more secure online experience

Broadening the Conversation• Progress Underway:

– SUNY Learning Commons migrating to full production

– Innovative Instruction Technology Grants program entering second year of funding:

• E Portfolio, E-Textbooks & OER development (Mark Ludwig, Dean Hendrix, Ben Wagner)

• Gaming & Simulation (Multiple Projects) (Deborah Waldrop, Steve Sturman, Mary Ann Meeker, David Milling, Karen Zinnerstrom, Tony Guzman, Katharina Dittmar, Jessica Poulin & Bina Ramamurthy)

• Assessment (Christine Kroll)

• Digital Literacy (Robin Sullivan, Cyndi Tysick)

Broadening the Conversation

• Opportunities to Participate:

– FACT2 Task Groups (www.fact.suny.edu)

• Learning Analytics

• Developmental Education

• E-Portfolio (Brenda Battleson, LIS)

– Task Groups now realizing support of Open SUNY:

• Learning Environments (Lisa Stephens)

• Intellectual Property (Beth Adelman, Bob Reis)

• E-Textbooks (Charles Lyons)

Broadening the Conversation• Opportunities to Participate:

– SUNY Sponsored Conferences

• Conference on Instruction & Technology (CIT)

• SUNY Technology Conference (STC) includes EdTOA

• SUNY Library Association (SUNYLA)

• SUNY Online (SOL Summit)

• Wizard (IT and Enterprise System Support)

Narrowing the Conversation

• What does UB need?

• What should System be considering?

• What has UB adopted that is working?

• How are you leveraging internal processes to develop online learning?