SUNY Learning Commons
Click here to access the Viva Engage Quick Guide
In 2012 The SUNY Learning Commons was launched with a vision of facilitating cross-campus collaboration and communication and bringing together Communities of Practice across the SUNY System. As needed functionality, technology and “community platforms” evolved, the SUNY Learning Commons has undergone exponential growth and change.
In Fall 2021, we announced yet another transition for the Learning Commons platform, and on April 1st, we transitioned from Meta Workplace to Microsoft Viva Engage Communities. If you would like to learn how MS Viva Engage can help your community or Community of Practice connect, please visit the Microsoft support page for Viva Engage.
Currently the SUNY Learning Commons on Viva Engage has 28 communities on the platform and continues to grow. Those that are interested in joining and engaging with your peers, you can view the different communities that are available to join and how to go about joining them below. If you are interested in creating a community or Community of Practice that is hosted on the platform, please connect with Courtnee Corcoran using the information below.
Groups can be public (open) or private (requests to join must be approved).
The SUNY Learning Commons is accessed via the web at the following link. Please use your campus federated credentials (campus email and associated password) to log into the tool.
If you are looking for training on Microsoft Viva Engage/Yammer or have any questions, please connect with Courtnee Corcoran, Community Manager, at 315-214-2424 or courtnee.corcoran@suny.edu.
The following groups are currently created in our SUNY Learning Commons (powered by MS Viva Engage) and are available for people to join or request permission to join.
For the public groups (open to all to join without permission), please complete the form below to be added to them.
For the private groups (you must request access to join them), please contact the contact person listed within the Community name by email and request access to the group.
For any technical issues or if you want to create/recreate a group in our SUNY Learning Commons (hosted by Viva Engage/Yammer), please contact Courtnee Corcoran at courtnee.corcoran@suny.edu.
All those who request access to a community in Viva Engage will also be added to the following 2 announcement communities:
SUNY Announcements
This group is for the larger SUNY audience (including campus members) to announce events and items of interest for others in the SUNY community to see.
SUNY Center for Professional Development
This group is for the larger SUNY audience (including campus members) to see SUNY CPD events, conferences, courses, classes, webinars and other items of interest that can be used for personal professional development.
Public Groups:
The DEISJ Faculty Network is a digital communication resource for those across the SUNY system who are teaching infused or standalone courses that fulfill the GE5 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice category. Faculty can ask and answer questions, request and post resources, develop and share opportunities of interest correlated to the GE5 framework.
The posts will be moderated by DEISJ Fellows, and membership is limited to those affiliated with SUNY. Those engaged in the network will help build a culture supportive of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice across SUNY.
Through a lens of course design, this group is dedicated to looking at how ID fits into an ever more complex and fast moving landscape.
To connect you with other colleagues throughout the system to discuss mindfulness resources and practices that will help you live and lead well.
Needs Description
This is a group for discussions about teaching using Open Pedagogy and Domain of One’s own and supporting the faculty that do this work.
This community gives SUNY staff an opportunity to discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in higher education in a supportive environment.
Our community brings together educational professional development staff & faculty throughout SUNY, with a particular emphasis on teaching & learning.
SUNY OER Services (SOS) operates as part of SUNY’s Office of Library and Information Services. SOS works with SUNY campuses and faculty to provide assistance and knowledge to support the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and sustained use of OER as drivers of faculty choice and student success. This includes offering a ready-to-adopt course catalog, facilitating the seamless integration of openly-licensed content into learning management systems, resources for developing and sharing content, and opportunities to learn and develop professionally.
For those interested in improving their online teaching & learning practices and who are also willing to “share what they know!” Everyone is welcome.
The Teaching with video group focuses on how video can amplify learning. We know that students learn best when presented with content via multiple modalities. This became a do-or-die situation during the pandemic, teachers quickly adapted and learned new tools such as Zoom. Teachers also had to learn to become content creators by pre-recording their videos. This group will focus on current and emerging video technologies, video production, pre-production, post-production, and how teachers can become content creators. If you are interested in learning more about how videos can amplify learning in education then join our group.
This is a place to bring higher education professionals together in shaping the future of ethical, transparent, and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has the potential to create significant opportunities for the transformation of education, enabling greater efficiency while improving the accuracy and effectiveness of decision-making and delivery. This community of practice has been established to share lessons learned and best practices.
This Community of Practice is where knowledge, research, and experiences using tools of mixed realities can be shared. Please note that this community contains Non SUNY Participants.
Private Groups:
The DEISJ Faculty Network is a digital communication resource for those across the SUNY system who are teaching infused or standalone courses that fulfill the GE5 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice category. Faculty can ask and answer questions, request and post resources, develop and share opportunities of interest correlated to the GE5 framework.
Please use the form below to request access to this group.
This group is the collaborative space for DOODLE. Membership in DOODLE is at the institutional level.
Please send access requests to Maney, Erin – Erin.Maney@suny.edu
The SUNY Early Alerts initiative launched in Spring 2017. This collaborative forum is for the project team to share and discuss insights, plans, challenges, and collective learning to inform system-wide approach to early alerts and student supports
Please send access requests to Forte, Michele – Michele.Forte@suny.edu
Please send access requests to Warner, Susan – Susan.Warner@suny.edu
A forum to share/discuss insights, plans, challenges, and learning to inform system-wide, multi-functional approaches to online student success initiatives.
Please send access requests to Wade, Andrea Andrea.Wade@suny.edu
The SUNY Change Leadership Community of Practice brings together professionals with diverse roles throughout SUNY to work together to support their effectiveness in change leadership. Like other Communities of Practice, this group shares a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. Members have a shared domain of interest and a commitment to a community that interacts, shares information, and learns together as active practitioners in Change Leadership.
Objectives of this Community of Practice
This Community of Practice seeks to accomplish the following goals:
- Enable campus leaders to engage with peers around change leadership
- Network to solicit and share information and resources around common challenges
- Create opportunities for members to learn more about principles and resources to support change leadership
- Collaborate on problem-solving
- Bring in outside expertise to add to campus perspectives
- Recognize and celebrate successes
This group is open to SUNY Professionals in diverse roles and levels who have an interest in honing their skills in Change Leadership.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
A group for Coaching Academy members.
Please send access requests to Gregory Ketcham – greg.ketcham@oswego.edu and
Jill M Pippin – jill.pippin@oswego.edu
The SUNY Continuing Education Collaborative (SUNYCEC) is an alliance of Continuing Education professionals from SUNY 4 year colleges possessing like-minded Continuing Education missions and educational programs. The CEC purpose is to promote continuing and adult education within SUNY and participating institutions, increase collaboration among member CE units, enhance revenue generation potential through CE programming at member institutions, deliver a SUNY learning opportunity to individuals seeking continuing education, and advocate on behalf of adult and continuing education students.
Please send access requests to Hand, Mary handm@sunyacc.edu
The SUNY Council of CIOs is a professional organization founded in 2001 as a collaborative opportunity for senior IT leadership at State University of New York (SUNY) campuses to exchange ideas, promote innovation and creativity, and to provide an influential contribution to improving our campuses and SUNY. By working together towards common goals we have opportunities to achieve much more than any single campus could on their own.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
Where members discuss learning community events and share best practices for corequisite developmental writing programs.
Please send access requests to Sean Moriarty sean.moriarty@oswego.edu and Erika Hackman erikahackman@sunyorange.edu
The EIT Accessibility Advisory Group will advise the System Provost-in-Charge and Chief Information Officer on implementation and execution of campus EIT Accessibility Plans, evolving industry standards, system-wide shared services to support EIT work, and issues and challenges related to achieving the goals of the SUNY EIT Accessibility Policy.
Please send access requests to Bryant, Abigail Abigail.Bryant@suny.edu
The EOP Counselor community is intended to create a space for counselors to share and disseminate best practices amongst each other. The community space will provide members an opportunity to support one another, p
Please send access requests to Ward, Diane diane.ward@suny.edu
The EOP Directors community is intended to create a space for EOP directors to connect. Directors are encouraged to share articles and best practices here.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
This group is for the nine colleges involved in the SUNY Family Empowerment Pilot Program.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
Where members learn about community events/workshops/professional development opportunities, discuss and share best practices for math pathways (i.e. co-requisite models).
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
These practices are focused on how student enter, progress and transition to either a four year college or the workforce. Colleges embracing pathways are redesigning the student experience in order to further student access and completion.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
Strong Start to Finish (SSTF) is a national effort focused on evidence-based reforms that help more college students succeed. SSTF is a network of like-minded individuals and organizations from the policy, research, and practice spaces who’ve come together for one reason – to help all students find success in post secondary education.
In this group members learn about community events/workshops/professional development opportunities, discuss and share best practices for guided pathways, math pathways and English co-requisite strategies.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
Strong Start to Finish (SSTF) is a national effort focused on evidence-based reforms that help more college students succeed. SSTF is a network of like-minded individuals and organizations from the policy, research, and practice spaces who’ve come together for one reason – to help all students find success in post secondary education.
In this group members learn about community events/workshops/professional development opportunities, discuss and share best practices for multiple measures and placement strategies.
Please send access requests to Kanic Franco, Alma Alma.KanicFranco@suny.edu
A Student Success Center connects the dots between colleges across the state so they can collectively meet their state’s completion goals. The Center creates a coherent, statewide framework for action, or a lens through which community colleges in the state evaluate, align, and integrate their work in various student success initiatives.
Through the Center’s work, colleges across the state can learn from—and build on—outstanding work at their neighboring and peer institutions. They have access to shared resources, opportunities to learn from one another, and support to scale effective practices statewide.
Please send access requests to Martin, Meghan Meghan.Martin@suny.edu
The SUNY WIT is an inclusive and diverse organization working to connect people identifying as women and their allies in traditional IT (information technology), libraries and other SUNY functional offices with strong technology roles (such as admissions, athletics, institutional research, impact analysts, academic departments, student success functions, instructional design, and campus facilities).
The initiative serves to engage the IT communities in direct efforts to advance the social justice and equity goals of SUNY, improve the SUNY employer brand, educate on expanding definitions of IT, and contribute to new appreciations of the documented benefits of diverse, solution oriented, resilient organizations.