7:30am – 9:00am Registration and Coffee

9:00am – 9:30am Current Trends
Speaker: Amanda Gould, Chief of Operational Effectiveness and Student Success, Bay Path University

Amanda will discuss current trends and statistics on online learning

9:30am – 10:30am Online Advising Models
Speakers:
Jennifer Barry, Campus Director, Bay Path University
Heather Bushey, Assistant Director of Advising and Student Support, Bay Path University
Amanda Gould, Chief of Operational Effectiveness and Student Success, Bay Path University
Aliana Vinacco, Educator Coach, Bay Path University

Academic Advisors serve a pivotal role in creating a supportive online environment that promotes student success. In this presentation, members from the Advising Center at Bay Path University’s American Women’s College online campus, will discuss specific programs and various techniques they are using to facilitate a more intentional advising model. Using the Appreciative Advising framework and Salesforce CRM system, advisors are able to provide more accurate and proactive outreach to each student while maintaining a developmental approach.

10:30am – 10:45am Break

10:45am – 11:45am If You Build It, They Will Get Involved – The Online Student Union
Speakers:
Cathy Doherty, Online Community Specialist, Southern New Hampshire University
Tiffany Fifer, Online Community Manager, Southern New Hampshire University

Online education is growing and so are the co-curricular needs of online learners. It’s not enough to invite online students to campus to get involved or attend an event once per year. We must rethink how we offer activities, leadership and involvement opportunities to students across the globe. In this session we will explore the use of online communities for student engagement and discuss technologies that allow us to reach our students where they live. Additionally, we will ask participants to consider how student affairs/activities professionals can make existing programs more inclusive or design new programs specifically for online students.

11:45am – 12:45pm Lunch

12:45pm – 1:45pm Design with Accessibility in Mind: 10 Quick Tips
Speaker: Julienne Cuccio Slichko, Instructional Developer, University at Albany

Learn some quick design tips that can be easily integrated when developing or redesigning an online course. Ensuring documents are accessible and built-in accessibility checkers will be discussed and additional resources will be provided.

1:45pm – 2:00pm Break

2:00pm – 3:00pm Triangular approach to Online Course Development: Collaborating with External Resources to Develop Quality, Online Courses
Speakers:
Stacy Chiaramonte, Director of Operations, Corporate and Professional Ed, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Kate Beverage, Associate Director of Academic Technology Center, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Today’s fast-paced world of higher education, tight budgets and tough competition from peer institutions necessitate building a strong infrastructure in order to create and support exemplary online program development. Is there value in investing permanent resources into faculty and course development or would it make sense to partner with an external resource to leverage your strengths while helping to support your weaknesses? This presentation will explore WPI’s partnership with eLearning Innovation’s custom learning solutions to develop courses for online delivery. Benefits of this partnership included robust and impressive Instructional Design support while leveraging our Academic Technology Center’s in-depth experience developing in the LMS to build the actual course framework generated by eLearning Innovation. We will share our experience working with an outside partner, lessons learned, and tips for obtaining faculty buy-in on such a model.

3:00pm – 3:15pm Wrap-up and