VI. Cultivating Innovation

Goals

• Strengthen the innovations that make CUNY SPS distinctive, responsive, equitable and transformative in the lives of students and the institution

• Expand our innovative leadership in online pedagogy and systems by nurturing a culture of constant improvement while investing, testing, and exploring new methodologies

• Leverage the expertise we have developed in offering online degree programs to support CUNY Online

CUNY SPS is recognized for its innovation, including advances in credit for prior learning, open educational resources, transfer credit, creative non-credit instruction, and highly ranked online programs. Still, to expand its leadership as an innovator, CUNY SPS must constantly recalibrate, explore, and invest. Because of its success as a top-ranked online learning provider, CUNY SPS has been asked to lead CUNY Online, using its experience and expertise to expand online learning throughout CUNY. On its own behalf as well as that of the University, the School will promulgate the most impactful strategies and practices, continuing to act with strategic urgency, flexibility, and dynamism to leverage technology to serve students.

VI. Proposed Actions and Initiatives

Evaluate & Adapt

• Use institutional effectiveness to measure the impact of existing innovations, making the adjustments needed for sustaining and scaling them, or phasing them out, as merited

• Tap and reapply innovations in one area as means of advancing work in another (e.g., the use of non-credit instruction as practiced in PEWL to create on-ramps to degree courses)

• Assess the educational technology tools we currently use to determine where and how to increase investment

• Identify technological options that will support scale while improving quality of instruction and services

• Determine the effectiveness of participatory budgeting as a means of introducing bottom-up innovations

Innovate

• Establish a School-wide system for inviting and vetting new ideas, including innovations developed in-house or elsewhere

• Support innovations with selective funding, grant writing, and the pursuit of partnerships or collaborations

• Provide incentives for faculty and staff to explore and experiment with new ideas, systems, and processes that support academic success and career development while improving the teaching and learning experience

• Seek opportunities to become the pilot and/ or lead on University-wide explorations, such as adoption of a new Learning Management System (LMS)

• Develop an in-house studio for the creation and development of digital content (video, audio, graphics, AR/VR/XR) that increases effectiveness and engagement of online courses

• Leverage online learning expertise to extend CUNY SPS’s non-degree educational offerings

• Bust policy barriers that impede innovations in serving adult learners

CUNY-wide Capacity

• Establish the structure and oversight to provide and supervise such University-wide services

• Confirm a business model that will sustain CUNY SPS’s involvement to ensure long-term support of all CUNY Colleges and Schools who seek support

• Develop an initial vetting strategy to determine what projects to take on, and when

• Leverage talent, expertise, and best practices across the entire University to cross-pollinate among all CUNY Colleges and Schools

Measuring Our Efforts

• Investments and incentives that support faculty and staff efforts to innovate

• Investments in research and evaluation of innovative practices

• Metrics on innovative ideas submitted/ vetted each year

• Metrics on numbers/ scope of CUNY projects in which CUNY SPS takes a piloting or strategic leading role

• Investment in digital content creation infrastructure

• Number of CUNY Online developed programs

• Number of faculty development opportunities supported by CUNY Online

• Satisfaction with CUNY Online Services