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. The TOPkit Workshop is a three day online live workshop that empowers those who manage faculty development or prepare faculty to teach online with practical tools and strategies to enhance their vocation. As online learning practices and technologies emerge and evolve, we unite to collaborate to build an even better future for online learning. Together, we will elevate the educational experience and transform the possibilities for all. This event will prepare education professionals to return to their campuses and effectively implement the emerging technologies, best practices, new found resources, and tools shared at the workshop and contained within TOPkit. Join us for TOPkit Workshop!
• 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 "Cindy" DeLuca, Ed.D.
• Vice President for Innovative Education
• University of South Florida
• deluca@usf.edu

• Phil Simpson, Ph.D.
• Dean of Arts and Social Sciences
• Eastern Florida Online
• simpsonp@easternflorida.edu

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

• Josh Strigle
• Dean, E-learning and Academic Services
• College of Central Florida
• striglej@cf.edu

• John Opper, PH.D.
• Executive Director - Distance Learning & Student Services
• Florida Virtual Campus
• jOpper@flvc.org

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

• Willie Freeman III, MBA
• Associate Executive Director/Center for Online & Continuing Education
• Florida Atlantic University
• wfreeman@fau.edu

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

• Yunhong "Tom" Tu, Ed.S. (Chair)
• Florida QM System Lead Coordinator/Instructional Designer
• Florida Virtual Campus
• ttu@flvc.org

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

• Amanda Major, Ed.D., CPTD, PMP
• Instructional Designer (Faculty)
• University of Central Florida
• amanda.major@ucf.edu

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

• Laura Jervis
• Instructional Designer
• Information Technology
• University of Florida
• lbjervis@ufl.edu

• Kevin Corcoran, M.B.A.
• Assistant Vice Provost, Center for Distributed Learning
• University of Central Florida
• kevin.corcoran@ucf.edu

• Katie Profeta
• Director of IRSC Online
• Indian River State College
• kprofeta@irsc.edu

• Maikel Right
• Associate Director of Instructional Learning Technology
• FIU Online Faculty Fellow
• FIU Honors College
• mright@fiu.edu

Contact Us

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