Behind the Scenes with Empire Online

Ever wonder how Empire State University upholds excellence in online learning and sustains its virtual campus? Thanks to the work of the Empire Online team, which spans instructional design to multimedia technology, online courses run seamlessly, empowering students to take their education into their own hands.

“At SUNY Empire, online learning isn’t just what we do—it’s who we are,” says Christine Paige, executive director of Empire Online. “Our students rely on us to deliver a high-quality, flexible, and accessible education. With expertise spanning instructional design, multimedia production, accessibility, and technology, our 36-member Empire Online team ensures that our virtual campus runs seamlessly.”

In this feature, you’ll hear directly from Alena Rodick, director of learning design and solutions, Kylen Clark, associate director of instructional design, and Mariah Lamb, multimedia designer, about their roles, challenges, and inspiration. Their perspectives highlight the creativity, collaboration, and care that go into making SUNY Empire’s online learning experience a model of possibility, inclusivity, and innovation.

What does Empire Online contribute to the university?

Rodick: We are the backbone of our online course offerings. Our team includes instructional designers, instructional technologists, multimedia designers, accessibility coordinators, and Digital Learning Environment (DLE) administrators. It encompasses the comprehensive support of everything from designing our online courses, to revising them, and supporting them while they run. Through that, supporting our students and our faculty, [as well as] the technical aspects of the learning management system (LMS), which is our campus because we don’t have a physical campus. Another big part of our office is also making sure that everything we offer is accessible.

Clark: Accessibility is a key piece in our review of courses and ensuring that they’re universally designed for learning, and that every student has equitable access to courses. Our support is extensive, and we take pride in our work and make sure everyone on our team is on the same page as far as standards and best practices.

Rodick: One other part [is supporting] a lot of other university-wide projects. Everything from presenting at the Learning with Innovative Technology Conference (LIT) to supporting the Fall Academic Conference. We are there to do whatever is needed to advance the mission of this university.

What does a day in your life look like?

Lamb: Right now, I’m the sole multimedia designer on the team. I’m hopping from a couple different projects during the day. Right now, I’m working on editing video and audio for a tax course that explains to students how to use tax software.

I’ve also been working on a project for an artificial intelligence (AI) course that launched this fall. We’ve been experimenting with AI software, building videos, and doing voiceovers with AI audio.

Clark: I’m supervising instructional designers. [They] are handling multiple projects at any given time, especially the start of the fall term. We’re wrapping up course revision and development projects … looking at tickets, just trying to make sure everything is wrapped up and prepared for the term. We have working groups, like a ChatGPT working group looking at AI and course design, and a lot of different projects any given day that we try to spend some time working on.

Rodick: It’s different every day. A lot of meetings on various topics, because we’ve truly made our department more inclusive, making sure that we stay in touch with each other and we don’t operate in silos. We’ve built a lot of strong connections and collaborations with everyone from Student Support and Outreach, the library, and Decision Support. We participate in a lot of committees so we can better serve the whole university.

I’m a co-chair of the Pedagogy and Practice committee. This committee undertook important tasks such as creating a syllabus framework and developing our approach to meeting the Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) requirement, an approach that was later adopted and used by many other institutions. That committee continues to provide strong support for Empire Online in terms of best practices for pedagogy and communication.

We just received good news: we always make sure to submit presentation proposals for national conferences in our field, and one of the largest, most important organizations is the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). This fall is their biggest conference in Orlando, Florida. Our team members submitted five presentations, and we recently learned that all were accepted. This reflects the expertise and initiative across the team and showcases how we are conducting research, staying current, and contributing alongside other leaders in online education nationwide.

What is something you wish people knew about the work that you do?

Clark: The work, time, and research necessary to revise, develop, and support online courses. We consider feedback as well as data and research on best practices in instructional design as we work on courses. We work with faculty course developers and subject matter experts, academic coordinators, instructors, and other departments across the university.

It is good for everyone to have awareness of all the work and effort that goes into having these really great courses.

Lamb: Multimedia is underutilized. People don’t always realize how much it adds to a course. It helps diversify the content a bit, so you’re not just looking at blocks of text and reading. It changes up the content and makes it a little more interesting.

Rodick: I would say a lot! It makes it a lot more engaging.

Lamb: Sometimes, people think I’m a magic fairy godmother, just wave my wand and it’s done. It takes a lot of time—it’s not just uploading it. It’s doing a video, recording audio, editing it, then probably editing it again, doing the graphics and visuals for the video, placing the audio, exporting it… There are a lot more steps behind the scenes.

Rodick: One part that would be great is if people remember that true collaboration in this work is what we do. It’s the best thing we can do, because it improves the quality of the courses, supports for students … collaborating and being open to other perspectives always gives us a better result.

What is your favorite thing about online learning?

Rodick: When I had my first job at SUNY, I was exposed to online learning through collaborative online international learning (COIL) projects. That inspired me—just seeing what kind of possibilities and options online [learning] offers to students who are in different places, different countries, or they may have different responsibilities.

Many of our students have other, more important priorities, and we’re there to support them. That’s what, for me, “online” means. It means you still get the same quality, the same opportunities, education—and you can do it while living a life.

Clark: Knowing that we have well-designed courses, grounded in research, best practices, and feedback, I feel like it’s an opportunity for students as a whole.

Anyone can take an online course or program, but it’s also a great opportunity for us all because we’re able to bring all our research into these courses. We’re able to pack it full of these well-designed, wonderful things, and still reach everyone at that magnitude. It’s really rewarding.

Lamb: I really love that it’s accessible to everyone. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you have access to the internet, it’s accessible.

Rodick: Quite a few of us teach, too. When I’m in touch with my students, and I know they have families or other things, I’m able to connect with them at nighttime, on Sunday … I can respond and support them no matter when they have time to finally log in and do their homework.

What is a challenge you frequently face in your work, and how do you overcome it?

Rodick: Lack of time. There are always more meaningful projects than hours in the day. In our day-to-day work, the bigger hurdle has been the changes in our digital learning environments, especially during the years we were in the multi-tenant Brightspace system. Since moving into our own single tenant, many of those issues have been resolved. We’ve completed our first full term in this environment and are back on track. For example, we now have direct access to our data whenever we need it, which has helped us build our own capacity in analytics. That shift has been exciting, and now that things are stable, we can spend our time on the kinds of projects that really help our faculty teach and students learn.

Clark: The lack of time is the same for me, too. We have so many ideas and new technologies or new things that we want to test or try. When there are course needs that come in, they take priority. We make sure things are ready for the term.

Lamb: There’s always something new I want to learn, and projects keep rolling in. It’s just scheduling everything, making sure they’re done the best I can do them.

What is one way that you support universal design for learning (UDL) in your work?

Clark: We follow accessibility standards and ensure alternative text for graphics, captioned videos, etc. We go through the standards on our course-quality review checklist. Our biggest section is on accessibility and making sure things are universally designed.

Rodick: We just finished a process called priority accessibility reviews, and we received an award for excellence for this process. We are proactive in our work in terms of accessibility; we develop videos and images, paying attention to accessibility, color, contrast, and providing alternative options.

Some courses may ask students to observe something. If the student has a visual disability, that may present difficulties. Then, we need to work with the faculty member and find an alternative assessment or revise that one to work for everyone—make it a true UDL assessment.

Lamb: Ensuring everything is consistent and using alt text on images. I also make sure that there is sufficient color contrast and that text size is large enough to be usable to anyone using the content. It’s a lot of cross-checking minute details to make sure that it is UDL.

What is the most fulfilling part of your work at the Empire Online office?

Clark: Knowing that we are making such a big difference for students in the courses that we work on. We’re supportive, always helping and looking to train each other.

And every day there’s something new … all toward that ultimate goal of student success.

Lamb: I came from a background of agencies and big corporations, so I didn’t really love what I was doing because I wasn’t making an impact on anyone, just helping big companies make money. At Empire [State University], it’s incredible how many lives we’re able to touch with the work we’re doing. It was important to me to find a position like this where I can help students grow and improve their lives.

Rodick: I second that. I remember one student saying that faculty members and the university made him believe in himself, helped him complete the program, and opened doors and opportunities in his life.

If anyone wants to remind themselves of what we do as a university and how important it is, volunteer at one of the graduations. It’s really inspiring.

What is your secret weapon when online?

Lamb: Color checker and Deque University I utilize both anytime I have an accessibility question. They are both great accessibility resources.

Clark: I think accessibility resources are helpful for students, especially with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The Empire Online Course Design Toolkit is good for anybody looking to design a course or training.

Rodick: I keep an eye on the Chronicle of Higher Education because they have a lot of good resources. We have a few members on different listservs through Educause.

University community members can reach out to the Empire Online team here, at the Empire Online Support Portal.