About Us

Feedback

Whether you are a first time visitor to the TOPkit site or a long-time participant in the TOPkit Community of Practice, your feedback will ensure that TOPkit is as relevant as possible to the online faculty development community. Please provide your anonymous reactions to/feedback on TOPkit.

Background

Together with a board of advisors from across the state of Florida and Florida Virtual Campus, your colleagues at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning have designed and developed a statewide faculty development program in support of the State University System of Florida Board of Governors 2025 Strategic Plan for Online Education. This program consists of three components: an online toolkit, community of practice, and annual workshop.

• The Florida Online Faculty Development Workshop is an annual two-day train-the-trainer experience delivered and hosted by UCF for faculty development professionals. It is currently reserved for Florida public institutions and will prepare these education professionals to return to their campuses and effectively implement the best practices, resources, and tools contained within TOPkit.
• The TOPkit Community of Practice is a global online forum for ongoing collaboration and sharing of faculty development resources and effective practices. It is also an ongoing forum for advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning in the online environment.
• The Teaching Online Preparation Toolkit (TOPkit) website is a comprehensive resource that provides the postsecondary community with the essential elements required to ensure a very high quality online faculty development program, including a sample course that may be imported into any learning management system and then customized. The menus above walk you through a three-step process for planning, developing, and evaluating your program along with supporting resources.

While this initiative is Florida funded and Florida focused, it is not Florida exclusive and we invite you, our colleagues around the world, to explore the TOPkit website and actively participate in its accompanying community of practice.

Research, Impact, & Evidence of TOPkit Implementation

TOPkit is dedicated to reflecting on the effectiveness of our initiative and mission. This section hosts resources demonstrating TOPkit’s impact within our community of practice.

Major, A. E., deNoyelles, A., Miller, R. (2022). Chronicling types of support and its evolution for quality digital learning in FL. TOPkit. Research report issued to the TOPkit Advisory Board on July 18.  

University of Central Florida Contributors

Additional content provided by:

Advisory Board

• Cynthia DeLuca, Ed.D.
• Assistant Vice Provost
• University of South Florida
• deluca@usf.edu

• Phil Simpson, Ph.D.
• Provost for Titusville Campus & Eastern Florida Online
• Eastern Florida State College
• simpsonp@easternflorida.edu

• Wendy Howard, Ed.D.
• Program Director, Pegasus Innovation Lab
• University of Central Florida
• wendy.howard@ucf.edu

• Allyson Haskell
• Senior Instructional Designer
• University of Florida
• ahaskell@ufl.edu

• Josh Strigle
• Director of E-Learning and Learning Support Centers
• College of Central Florida
• striglej@cf.edu

• John Opper, Ph.D.
• Executive Director, Distance Learning and Student Services
• Florida Virtual Campus
• jopper@flvc.org

• Tom Cavanagh, Ph.D.
• Vice Provost for Digital Learning
• University of Central Florida
• cavanagh@ucf.edu

• Willie Freeman III, MBA
• Associate Executive Director of eLearning
• Florida Atlantic University
• wfreeman@fau.edu

• Kelvin Thompson, Ed.D.
• Executive Director, Center for Distributed Learning
• University of Central Florida
• kelvin@ucf.edu

• Page Jerzak
• Assistant Vice President of Academic Technologies and Training
• Santa Fe College
• page.jerzak@sfcollege.edu

• Jann M. Sutton
• Senior Instructional Designer
• University of North Florida
• j.sutton@unf.edu

• Tom Tu, Ed.S. (Chair)
• Distance Learning & Student Services
• Florida Virtual Campus
• ttu@flvc.org

• Sue A. Bauer
• Senior Instructional Designer (Faculty)
• University of Central Florida
• SueB@ucf.edu

Contact Us

Please contact us via email at TOPkit@ucf.edu.