Webinars on Antiracist Pedagogy

GSOLE is partnering with the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum to host two events free to both GSOLE and AWAC members:

• “A Practical Toolkit for Antiracist WAC” presented by Genevieve García de Müeller and Ana Cortés Lagos on 22 September, from 2:00p to 3:30p ET. Register and learn more.
• “Strategies for Antiracist and Decolonial Language Pedagogy in the Online Writing Classroom” presented by Rachael Shapiro, Missy Watson, & Jude Miller on 27 September, from 2:00p to 3:30p ET. Register and learn more.

Call For Proposals: 2022 “Visions and Sites” Conference—(submission deadline: 12 October, 2021)

We invite members and nonmembers alike to submit proposals for our fifth annual all-day online conference, which will meet synchronously for a series of panels and plenaries on 28 January 2022. Don’t miss this opportunity to talk with other literacy educators about the latest topics and techniques for online literacy education. You can find more about the CFP on the GSOLE website.

Annual Member Survey—Open until 20 September, 2021

If you haven’t yet, please take 10 minutes to complete our annual member survey (requires login, but all responses are anonymous). We’ve extended the deadline to September 20 in order to hear from more members. This is your chance to let us know more about yourself and how we can serve your needs as an online literacy educator. The survey invites open comments at the end as well. 

New OLOR Effective Practices Publication Treating Online Group Projects

Earlier this summer we relaunched the Online Literacies Open Resource on our new website. There you can find the most recent OLOR Effective Practices publication: Tess Evan’s “Supervising Team Projects Effectively in an Online Writing Course.”

New Officers and At-large Executive Board Members

In July and August, we welcomed the following members to our Executive: Jennifer Cunningham, Meghalee Das, and Barbara D’Angelo. We’d like to thank the following outgoing Board Members for their service: Amy Cicchino, Miranda Egger, and Jessie Ulmer. We’d also like to thank Jude Miller for his work as Communication/Membership Officer over the past year. Appointed in his place are Nikki Chasteen as Membership Officer and Beatrice Newman as Communication officer. Learn more about the GSOLE leadership on our “Current Leaders” page.

In case you missed Vice President Cat Mahaffey’s earlier invitation to join the 2022 conference planning committee, here are a some more ways to get involved in GSOLE initiatives and activities:

Membership Officer

The GSOLE Steering Committee is looking for a current or new member to serve as our Membership Officer. The position entails about 10 hours of monthly volunteer contributions, including

• regularly monitoring the <membership@gsole.org> inbox, 
• one or more online committee meetings , and
• focused project work related to membership support and GSOLE's overall mission.

For a more detailed list of responsibilities and opportunities associated with this position, as well as instructions for applying, please visit the full Membership Officer position description. 

Communication Officer

The GSOLE Steering Committee is looking for a current or new member to serve as our Communication Officer. The position entails about 10 hours of monthly volunteer contributions, including

• regularly monitoring and posting to GSOLE’s social media accounts, 
• one or more online committee meetings, and 
• focused project work related to logistical and mission-based communication needs.

For a more detailed list of responsibilities and opportunities associated with this position, as well as instructions for applying, please visit the full Communication Officer position description. 

Content Curators

Our website is crucial for providing access to our services and support. Altogether, this content requires multiple volunteers to maintain and make it accessible—and we’re adding new material every month! We invite GSOLE members with any level of experience to get more involved as  Content Curators. Besides helping to facilitate online community and improve access to important OLI resources, you’ll have an opportunity to work with GSOLE administrators and the leaders of our program development committees.

To learn more about our Content Curator positions and how to apply, please visit the full position description. 

It's time to start working on next year's conference. As you might imagine, a lot of work goes into planning and implementing the conference. We've been fortunate the last few years to have a large committee to minimize extended labor for any one person. 

Having said that, we set larger and greater goals each year, and this year is no different, so we need more volunteers. Please consider joining the Conference Committee for the 2022 GSOLE Conference. You can choose to do as much or as little as your schedule allows when you're available. 

Volunteer opportunities include:

• Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) 
• Conference Program
• Presenter/Panel Liaison
• Post-Conference Archive
• Proposal Review
• Registration/Conference Promotion
• Sponsor Recruitment
• Website Maintenance

If you're interested in joining the Conference Committee, please complete this Google Form by Friday, July 9 at 5pm. 

The committee will hold its first planning meeting for next year's conference in mid to late July.

If you'd like more information about the committee or encounter issues with the form, email vice-president@gsole.org for assistance.

While COVID has made us all online instructors, it has not given us the time, support, or guidance necessary to teach effectively and confidently in online spaces. The Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE), a community of experts in online literacy practices, is offering a Basic Online Literacy Instruction (OLI) Certificate to help teachers and tutors new to online learning implement research-based practices in online courses and online writing centers and make connections with other online literacy instructors. 

The course balances theory and practice and is designed to support the instructional work of anyone teaching reading and writing, such as instructors teaching composition, professional writing, literature, creative writing, writing-intensive courses in majors across the disciplines, as well as writing center tutors and English teachers in middle and high schools. The rigor and labor associated with this course can be compared to a graduate-level course with an ePortfolio being the final deliverable that will be assessed for certification. We estimate participants will spend approximately five hours per monthly module over 9 months. 

Individuals who enroll in the Basic OLI Certificate will…

• Connect with a community of online literacy instructors and tutors as well as online literacy mentors
• Learn principles in effective online literacy education
• Read scholarship in online literacy instruction (OLI)
• Receive guidance from OLI experts on assignment and activity design for online literacy courses and online writing center consultations
• Develop strategies for adapting instruction to different online modalities (e.g., synchronous and asynchronous learning)
• Develop strategies for assessing online learning
• Be able to communicate their approach to OLI to others through the creation of an OLI theory and ePortfolio

We ask that administrators, teachers, or tutors new to online learning consider enrolling for our Basic OLI Certificate, which occurs throughout the 2021–2022 academic year and begins August 15th. To enroll, please visit https://gsole.org/certification.

Registration cost:

• For contingent faculty and graduate students: $100
• Full-time faculty/staff making under $50,000 annually: $125
• Full-time faculty/staff making over $50,000 and up to $75,000 annually: $150
• Full-time faculty/staff making over $75,000 annually: $200

Enrollment for this certification is used to fund an honorarium to the OLI facilitator-mentors. Participants must be GSOLE members if they are not so already. 

If we can help you advocate to institutional stakeholders for funds related to course registration, please let us know. We encourage institutions who are enrolling multiple participants to contact us as they register these individuals so that we can group them in the same learning pod. In our experience, these institutional cohorts have greater chances for completion and success. 

If you have any questions about the certificate program or GSOLE generally, please contact Amy Cicchino, amycicchino@auburn.edu.

The entire Online Literacies Open Resource is back online after migration from our old site to our new one <gsole.org/olor>. In the process, we’ve reconceptualized GSOLE’s publication model, even as we’ve updated (and continue updating) the resources themselves to be more citable, reliable, and accessible.

New OLOR Publication Model

Here are the important details about the updated OLOR publication paradigm:

• The Online Literacies Open Resource will now include all of GSOLE’s open resources, including the previously published OLOR resources (now listed as OLOR Effective Practices), Research in Online Literacy Education (ROLE), our Just-in-Time resources, and our OLI Principles. Each of these titles will now be treated as a series underneath our “umbrella” OLOR publication.
• We will divide the past ROLE publications into two series: ROLE research and OLOR Reviews. Some of the ROLE technology reviews will be republished under OLOR Effective Practices, depending on the focus of the article.
• Each republished piece will acknowledge its original site of publications to ensure past citations of the resources will clearly indicate a reference to the republished pieces.

Improvements to the Resources Themselves

Here are the key features we’re gradually introducing to all the resource pages and articles:

• Better web indexing and reliable permalinks for each resource.
• Clearer presentation of bibliographic information to facilitate referencing of materials in OLOR.
• Section and paragraph numbers to facilitate targeted citation.
• Better support for assistive devices through more consistent and more purposeful tagging of material and use of ARIA attributes. We’re working towards WCAG 2.0 compliance.

Call for Volunteers: Help Build OLOR!

Finally, we are also seeking volunteers to help implement the improvements described above.

Copyeditors for GSOLE Publications: Do you have a sharp eye for mechanics, format, and phrasing? If so, we’d value your contributions as a copyeditor.  

OLOR Reviews editor: The OLOR Reviews editor will be responsible for soliciting and develop short reviews for books, technology, and other relevant media. This is a great opportunity to network with other OLI professionals and keep apprised of OLI resources.

Lead Curator/Editor of GSOLE’s “Online . . . Just-in-Time” Resources: We developed our Just-in-Time resources in a rush, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, we’d like to curate the resources more deliberately. If you’ve benefited from these resources or have some ideas about how to improve them, consider applying for this Lead Curator/Editor position.

Content Curators for GSOLE Publications: If you’d like to learn more about accessible multimodal composition, this is a great opportunity to practice hands-on techniques making online resources work well for broad audiences of readers. No experience in website development is required. If you’re already adept with accessible multimodal composition, then you’ll have an opportunity to put your knowledge and talents to good use by helping to guide these efforts in short and long term projects.

Contact Us with Questions or to Volunteer

If interested in volunteering in any of these positions, please contact olor@gsole.org, including a two-paragraph statement of interest and qualifications for the position (no experience required) and a current CV.

GSOLE Conference Registration is Open!

We are pleased to announce that registration is officially open for the 2021 GSOLE Conference on January 29th. To register, please click on the following link:  https://gsole.org/event-4051542

Our Keynote Speakers will be Dr. Lou Maraj and Dr. Scott Warnock. 

Current GSOLE members can register for our conference at these low rates:

• Regular GSOLE members – $10.00

• Student and contingent faculty GSOLE members – $5.00

Webinar Co-Chair and Web Content Curators Needed

We invite GSOLE members with any level of experience to get more involved as Assistant Web Content Curators and Webinar Co-Chairs. This is a great way to contribute to our community and gain valuable experience. Read more about these positions and ways to get involved here. 

GSOLE is a fast-growing organization, and there are many ways to engage besides participating in our events. By dedicating just a few hours a month, you can ensure we continue to offer compelling, insightful, and inclusive programs throughout the year. Below are just a couple of ways you can help:

Become an Assistant Web Content Curator

As an online organization catering to online educators and scholars, we know our website is crucial for providing access to our services and support. Besides hosting just-in-time resources and professional events, such as webinars and our annual online conference, our website also hosts two peer-reviewed publications and archives of our multimodal events. Altogether, this content requires multiple volunteers to maintain and make it accessible—and we’re adding new material every month!

You can help! We invite GSOLE members with any level of experience to get more involved as Assistant Web Content Curators. Besides helping to facilitate online community and improve access to important OLI resources, you’ll have an opportunity to work with GSOLE administrators and the leaders of our program development committees.

We especially encourage GSOLE members interested in the following OLI topics to apply:

• Multimodal composition
• Accessible design
• Online discourse communities
• Collaborative composition

Interested members should send a CV and a paragraph explaining their interest in the Web Curator role to president@glosole.org.

Become a Webinar-Coordinator-in-Training

For five years, Jenae Cohn and Mary Stewart have served as Co-Chairs of the GSOLE Webinar Committee, year-after-year putting together a schedule of engaging and timely offerings. Thank you Jenae and Mary!

Now, however, they are ready hand off the role of Webinar Coordinators. Are you interested in continuing this important work for GSOLE?

We invite GSOLE members who have enjoyed and benefited from our webinars to join our Webinar Committee, helping Jenae and Mary to put on the remaining webinars for the 2020-2021 season, while also looking ahead to next year’s offerings.

Interested members should send a CV and a paragraph explaining their interest in the webinar series sto president@glosole.org.

The September Executive Board meeting has brought in some exciting updates. 

New Pricing Structure for Institutional Memberships

The Board has moved forward with a new tiered pricing model for institutional memberships that are based on the size of the membership. Institutions can choose from the following tiers:

1. $300 for up to 15 members 
2. $500 for up to 30 members
3. $700 for up to 50 members. 

Learn more about signing up your institution here.

CFP Deadline Extended for GSOLE's 2021 Online Conference & Keynote Speakers Announced

The new deadline for proposals for GSOLE's Online Conference is October 19th. Please read more about submitting here.

We are also very excited to announce the two keynote speakers for the Conference: 

Lou Maraj, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in anti-racist digital rhetorics and is an award-winning poet. He also co-founded the Digital Black Lit & Composition (DBLAC) national graduate student organization. 

Scott Warnock, Ph.D. is a Professor of English and Director of the University Writing Program at Drexel University. He specializes in the use of technology in online writing instruction and is the immediate Past President of GSOLE. 

Dear GSOLE colleagues,

My time as GSOLE President is in the past. My two-year term ended June 30. I took a vacation. I then took a few weeks to work on some big projects. But I wanted to send you a brief note of thanks and to say how proud I am of what the people of GSOLE have accomplished since 2016, when a group of us led by Beth Hewett hatched an idea for a professional organization that became GSOLE. 

The GSOLE website shows what we are and what we have accomplished. On this (just recently improved!) site, a visitor sees our many OLI resources, such as our two journals, webinar series, research support, conference, certification courses, affiliates, and of course principles and tenets.

It may be less apparent to see who we are. Behind that site and those resources are volunteers who say “yes” over and over again to project and task requests, who carve out time to attend monthly executive board meetings, and who help those in our field. I think the extraordinary spring Just-In-Time response to the international COVID crisis demonstrated well who we are. People inundated with work on their local campuses, who were being called on during long weeks as resident/local online learning experts, somehow found time to create resources and provide support to colleagues for the good of the overall education mission. That is who the people of GSOLE are.

Challenges lie ahead. We will refine and develop our resources. We must continue to grow our membership, a task that will take ongoing, steady work. Part of this membership goal is the specific aim to diversify the organization. People across the United States are seeing our culture, again, at a crossroads in terms of race, and, like many of those people, I am hopeful that this time we may finally, collectively get it right: Black Lives Matter. I believe our organization has articulated concrete ways that we will contribute to that collective choice for good, and the organization is in great hands to meet these challenges with the core leadership of Dan Seward as President, Cat Mahaffey as Vice President, Tess Evans as Treasurer, and Jennifer Burke Reifman as Secretary.

It has been an honor and pleasure to work with all of you as President. I want to thank you for taking my many calls and answering my emails. You have worked so hard for the good of the organization and the good of online learning—which means, ultimately, you are working for students.

While I suppose part of me wishes that my role as Immediate Past President entailed merely wearing a sash and showing up to cut virtual ribbons, I know that is not the nature of GSOLE. I will continue to work hard for the good of the organization. After all, I’ll be in good company.

See you in cyberspace,
Scott

Hello GSOLE members,

The Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE) and the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) will be hosting a series of free, open events for online instructors in mid-October. These virtual events will be short (20-30 minutes) with the expectation that attendees could join for one, some, or all of the presentations. We would like your help identifying potential topics that would interest you. 

Please take this short survey, which asks about your needs as an online, or “remote,” instructor this semester. We estimate this survey will take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. By responding to this survey, you will help us design events that address topics which are meaningful and relevant to our field and its practitioners. 

Thank you for your time.

Best,

Amy Cicchino (GSOLE Affiliates’ Liaison), Jason Snart (OLOR Journal Editor and GSOLE leader), Cheryl Hogue Smith (TYCA President), and Sarah Johnson (TYCA Vice President)