Resources to Support Faculty in Distance Education

The main campus resource supporting faculty pedagogical development is the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. They provide faculty development opportunities and support for online teaching including:

• Courses in Online Teaching
• Brief Resource Guides
• Consultations

SLU libraries have subscriptions to journals dedicated to distance education; those listed below with an * are accessible only to the SLU community. These are just some of the resources available for faculty and staff wanting to learn about distance education or publish their original research. 

• EDUCAUSEreview (freely available)
• The International Journal of E-Learning and Distance Education  (freely available)
• The Journal of Educators Online*
• The Journal of Online Learning and Teaching*

• Reinert Center Canvas Information
• ITS New Faculty Guide

• Panopto at SLU
• Panopto Help

Faculty who need help identifying appropriate ways to provide access to digital materials should contact their designated subject librarian for assistance. Subject librarians will work with you to figure out what materials can be purchased/licensed in formats available to online students. Purchase/licensing of new materials such as e-books and streaming video is done on a case-by-case basis and is subject to availability and budget constraints. Requests should ideally be made well before the start of the course term to ensure adequate time to receive access to the materials or allow for the identification of alternative materials if that becomes necessary. Subject librarians also can help you identify what material on your list is already available through SLU Libraries.

The University Libraries provide a robust and convenient eReserves system through which students can freely access library-owned articles, book chapters, and e-books, as well as most materials provided by course instructors. When SLU Libraries do not already own or license materials requested for eReserves we will attempt to acquire the materials, or seek copyright clearance and pay permissions fees as the budget allows. More information on eReserves can be found at the SLU eReserves home page. 

If you do not use eReserves for providing access to articles and books the library owns, please link directly to the material instead of saving a copy to your course page. This keeps us in compliance with copyright requirements and ensures we have accurate statistics on materials usage, which is especially important for making decisions to continue or cancel subscriptions. Most databases include options to create a permanent stable URL. If it is not already done, you should add the SLU proxy prefix (http://ezp.slu.edu/login?url=) to the beginning of the URL to make sure students off campus will be able to access the material. Your subject librarian can help you locate stable URLs or ensure you're linking properly to ensure off-campus access.

• Ally is an accessibility tool integrated into Canvas. Students can use this tool to convert files, documents, and Canvas pages into alternative formats such as OCR, audio, ePub, and Electronic Braille.
• Ally also helps instructors improve accessibility in their Canvas courses by identifying accessibility issues and providing information on how to meet accessibility standards. ITS has created some instructor guides for Ally.
• More information about Ally can also be found on the Ally Instructor Help Page.

• What is Universal Design for Learning? (PDF)
• The Center for Universal Design in Education
• ADA Compliance for Online Course Design
• 20 Tips for Designing Accessible Courses
• Canvas Accessibility Statement

• Pius XII Memorial Library: The Library has two scanners that can create text-searchable PDFs, located on level one in the Academic Tech Commons. The Library also provides access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, which can create text-searchable PDFs from existing PDFs. See this Pius Library FAQ for more about creating text-searchable PDFs.
• Center for Accessibility and Disability Resources: The Center for Accessibility and Disability Resources can help you identify appropriate accommodations for specific student accessibility needs. Additionally, they offer these faculty and staff resources.
• Reinert Center: The Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning can work with you one-on-one to design accessible, inclusive courses. Additionally, they offer these inclusive teaching resources.

These distance education organizations house resources including articles and research related to distance learning, professional development opportunities, discussion forums, and scorecards and rubrics derived from evidence-based practices in online pedagogy. To create a member log-in please contact the Distance Education Office.

• Educational Advisory Board: Continuing and Online Education Forum
• OLC: Online Learning Consortium
• Quality Matters
• UPCEA: University Professional and Continuing Education Association

Some distance education conferences in which faculty and staff can attend or present include:

• Distance Teaching and Learning Conference, University of Madison-Wisconsin
• EDUCAUSE
• OLC: Online Learning Consortium: OLC sponsors several regional and national conferences dedicated to distance education.
• WCET: WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies