Editor’s note: If Darina’s journey has inspired you, consider applying for the IELOL 2025 program. This unique opportunity is designed to equip leaders in online learning with the tools and network needed to drive impactful change. Applications for the 2025 cohort are now open—don’t miss your chance to take your leadership to the next level!
My name is Darina Slattery, and I am an Associate Professor at the University of Limerick, in Limerick, Ireland. I teach courses on e-learning and instructional design, and I undertake research in the areas of online education, collaborative online international learning, and professional development for online teachers. I teach on a number of programs, including an MA in Technical Communication and E-Learning (fully online, blended, and in-person) and a Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing (fully online).
In this article, I’d like to tell readers about my experiences participating in the IELOL program, which I undertook in 2019, and how it has shaped my leadership journey ever since. The five-month program involved a virtual component in July, a one-week on-site immersion at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in August, an online post-immersion project from September to October, and an IELOL master class during the OLC Accelerate conference in Florida (attendance at the master class was optional, but I was keen to meet my IELOL cohort again!). I came across the program on the OLC website and believe I was the only participant accepted on to the programme from outside North America that year. I was very fortunate to receive the Bruce N. Chaloux scholarship to participate in the program, and I received support from our then Vice President of Academic Affairs and Student Engagement.
I clearly remember sitting in UCF and thinking how exciting it was to be doing a program with so many like-minded people—everyone there was interested in advancing online education, and everyone was interested in learning from others.
The IELOL program was life-changing for me. While I had been providing voluntary support to colleagues before the pandemic (helping them incorporate technology more in their teaching), this obviously stepped up a whole other notch in March 2020 when my institution went fully online. Being an alumna of IELOL meant I had the confidence, as well as formally recognized expertise, to support my colleagues in the initial move to Emergency Remote Teaching (Hodges et al., 2020).
As part of the IELOL program, we were required to devise a project that we would take back to our institution to support the advancement of online education. To that end, I proposed the creation of a new role for my faculty, which would incorporate digital learning transformation activities (obviously, I had my sights set on this role). However, shortly after I proposed this idea to my Dean, senior management announced major structural changes across the institution. While I was initially disappointed that my idea did not gain traction, within a year of completing the IELOL program, I was offered a secondment as Project Lead to support a new LMS review at my institution. The role was initially supposed to last just six months while I determined staff and student requirements for a new LMS, spoke to other institutions about their LMS reviews, arranged meetings with potential LMS vendors, and undertook a literature review of the LMS landscape. However, I was subsequently asked to stay on as an active member of the LMS Project Team and was appointed the LMS Academic Change and Engagement (ACE) Lead in October 2022. In that unique role, I was responsible for ensuring the needs of staff and students were kept to the fore when implementing and rolling out the new LMS. I led or was involved in almost every aspect of the LMS project—communication, training, interface changes, migration, legacy data, future governance planning, and so on. I served as ACE Lead until April 2024, when the LMS project officially ended. As I write this article, I am currently on research leave, and I will return to my academic role full-time in January 2025. I am currently writing up what I learned during the LMS project (there is lots to say!) and I plan to publish journal articles and book chapters about the experience.
Coincidentally, while undertaking the IELOL program, I was also serving as Vice President of the IEEE Professional Communication Society (ProComm), and I held that role until the end of 2020. The ProComm field of interest includes “professional, scientific, engineering, and technical communication; content development; information design; and usability, as well as their potential social impacts” (ProComm, 2024) so it has a good deal of overlap with online education. In 2021, I assumed the role of President (also for two years), and I am just about to finish a two-year stint as Immediate Past President. During that time, my experiences during the IELOL program stood to me greatly, as I oversaw online content initiatives and unexpected moves to virtual conferences during the pandemic. I am certain that my participation in IELOL gave me the confidence and ability to succeed in those significant leadership roles.
I am still in touch with several IELOL participants, and we promote each other’s activities via LinkedIn. I am also in touch with some of the IELOL program faculty, who have supported me in academic promotions, and the like. For future IELOL participants, I strongly recommend that they keep in touch with fellow participants and reach out to the program faculty if/ when they need support or advice. Recently, the OLC established an IELOL alumni page on LinkedIn, so it is great to be a member of that group should I need to reach a wider net.
For readers who are interested, further details about my teaching and research interests can be found here. I am always keen to find like-minded collaborators, so please do reach out! I also maintain a separate website comprising digital learning resources, which includes links to resources on generative AI, academic integrity, accessibility, universal design for learning, and best practice/ quality in digital learning, to name but a few. I add to this list frequently and developed it to support other academics navigating developments in online learning.
References
Hodges, C. et al. (2020), “The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning,” Educause Review. [Online]. Available: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning