Abstract
The State University of New York (SUNY) Learning Network (SLN) is the online instructional program created for the 64 colleges and nearly 400,000 students of SUNY. The foundation of the program is freedom from schedule and location constraints for our faculty and students. The primary goals of the SLN are to bring SUNY's diverse and high-quality instructional programs within the reach of learners everywhere, and to be the best provider of asynchronous instruction for learners in New York State and beyond. We believe that these goals cannot be achieved unless faculty receives appropriate support.This paper will examine factors that have contributed to the high level of faculty satisfaction we have achieved in the SLN. The analysis will be done on several levels. This first section will look at the SLN at a program-wide level and will provide information regarding the systemic implementation of our asynchronous learning environment.The second section examines issues that contribute to on-line teaching satisfaction from a faculty-development and course-design perspective. This section will present the evolution of the four-stage faculty development process and a seven-step course design process that was developed by SLN and comment on lessons learned.The third section presents results from the SLN Faculty Satisfaction Survey conducted in spring 1999. This section examines factors from a quantitative analysis that significantly contributes to faculty satisfaction with online teaching and offers recommendations for course and program design based on these factors.The fourth section examines faculty satisfaction at the level of individual institutions with examples from specific courses. This section will introduce the reader to local implementation of SLN courses at two college programs in the SUNY system: the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University at Albany (UA), and the Internet Academy (IA) of Herkimer County Community College (HCCC). These case studies present and examine important evidence of faculty satisfaction from a single-institution and individual-faculty perspective.
Highlights
With generous support from the Alfred P
The State University of New York (SUNY) Learning Network (SLN) is the on-line instructional program created for the 64 colleges and nearly 400,000 students of SUNY
Sloan Foundation combined with enthusiasm and resources from SUNY System Administration and participating campuses the SUNY Learning Network (SLN) has successfully met the challenges of the initial developmental phases that focused on proof of concept and expansion/scalability
Summary
With generous support from the Alfred P. The development and delivery of asynchronous courses was a new activity for SUNY campuses and faculty. @. Prior to the SLN program, many SUNY campuses were starting to experiment with asynchronous components to complement their classroom-based courses. Seven faculty created courses for the on-line degree one full, five associate, and one assistant professor participated in the program. Participating faculty average more than 15 years of teaching experience in higher educational settings, and, all are educational specialists. Three of the faculty members teaching SLN courses had more than ten years experience with the use of information technology, including experience in multimedia design. One faculty member was a complete novice She had a graduate student help her develop and teach the course.
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