In order to better meet the goals of the academic master plan for Virtualization, an increase in the number of staff supporting the Faculty and Students who use SUNY Orange Learning Management System (currently Blackboard 9.1) is requested.  In additional, half-time secretarial support is also requested to facilitate the creation of documentation and to assist with faculty and student workshops.

The current Director of Academic Technology is our only trained instructional designer, and also manages the administration of our online learning management system. In order to increase the number of training workshops available for faculty, we are developing a hybrid training course which can teach the basic functionality of moving content to an online format, however, the bulk of the course development work happens after the basic training is completed.  Faculty have questions specific to their particular content, online classroom management, assessment, communication, and a host of other situations.  In order for SUNY Orange to differentiate itself as the best choice of online offerings, we need to ensure that our online courses have no barriers to student success.  This can be accomplished by faculty working closely with an instructional designer throughout the development process, as well as instituting a comprehensive course review of all our online courses, following documented quality standards, such as the OSCQR or Quality Matters rubrics.  A cycle of continuous improvement should be instituted so that our courses are refreshed and updated on a regular basis.  This requires a great deal of time on the part of those supporting online faculty, as well as the faculty members who teach online. 

SUNY Orange has not increased the number of staff providing support for online learning since 2003.  An increase in the number of personnel who are dedicated to supporting online learning will have a direct and positive impact on our students' experience in their online courses.