Program Chair Welcome

It is our pleasure to invite you to the 29th year of the Online Learning Consortium’s Accelerate Conference. This year’s OLC Accelerate conference will take place both virtually (October 3-5, 2023) and onsite in Washington, D.C., at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center (October 24-27, 2023).

This year’s conference theme is Creating Connections: Uniting Learners through Collaboration and Creativity. As online and blended learning continue to advance us into the future of education, OLC Accelerate provides the opportunity for innovators to come together with a mission to improve the educational landscape. This year’s program promises opportunities for thoughtful discussions aimed at innovating our methods, challenging the status quo, and broadly sharing effective practices for online and blended learning. OLC Accelerate 2023 provides a path both for those new, as well as those returning to the world of online and blended learning to engage in these conversations,and to determine the opportunities for new ideas for our field. The OLC Accelerate 2023 program centers an important dialogue and focus on “evidence,” as we seek collaboration around how we identify, measure, and assess continuous improvement over time within and across the field of online, blended, and digital learning. In this way, OLC Accelerate 2023 serves as an opportunity for educators, administrators, and allies to engage in deeper thinking and a sharing of collective wisdom that helps us all hone our craft and identify strategies for the future. 

We invite you to join us as we collectively look ahead into the world of online and blended education and help to pave the way for innovation and change. Our virtual program will convene countless educators from around the globe and discuss the ways that our work intersects as a larger, online community. Then, we’ll come together in the nation’s capital three weeks later for more incredible programming, including conversation, networking, and ample opportunity to engage  one another, with a focus on digital learning leadership, strategies for centering equity and quality in online education, and blended learning as the future of higher education. Come join our community and experience everything that OLC Accelerate 2023 has to offer!

We are excited to announce the conference tracks for this year, each track will provide a unique and valuable perspective for individuals to share their knowledge and expertise. The Accelerate 2023 tracks are:

• Access, Equity, and Open Education
• Blended Learning Strategy and Practice
• Engaged and Effective Teaching and Learning
• Instructional Design
• Leadership and Institutional Strategy
• Research, Evaluation, and Learning Analytics
• Student Support and Success
• Technology and Future Trends

OLC continues to be known for session formats that offer innovative approaches to engagement in both face-to-face and online environments, including:

• Gamified Sessions that connect the audience with the presenters and content in new and exciting ways. Presenters in the past have drawn from murder mystery themes, Price is Right games, Jeopardy, etc. for their sessions. These sessions tend to draw a large audience and are fun for both the  presenter and participanst! 
• Our 90 minute Workshops offer in-depth exploration and activation of topics, with meaningful and measurable participant learning outcomes. Our Express Workshops offer practical, hands-on learning activities to participants eager to acquire new skills in a shorter 45 minute session.  
• Discovery Sessions will again be offered in both onsite and asynchronous formats to allow for flexibility of preferred presentation modality. These sessions help to drive forward innovative models for connecting with audiences.
• Graduate students currently enrolled or recently graduated from their program (Master or Doctoral) have a special opportunity to present asynchronous Graduate Student Discovery Sessions on their research relevant to online teaching and learning. 
• NEW THIS YEAR will be ‘Lightning Sessions’ that will be short, 15-minute presentations where knowledge, engagement, and innovation will come together to showcase a range of new and emerging topics. 

OLC is known for high-quality and engaging programming and OLC Accelerate will be no different. From our general sessions to our volunteer-led engagement programming, OLC Accelerate 2023 will be a conference experience (and community) to remember. If you are still considering submitting to this year’s Call For Proposals, know that the OLC is here to support you, including through our unique and robust OLC Presenter Services program.

As you can see, OLC Accelerate is primed to provide an opportunity for the higher education online community, both new and returning, to come together and share their expertise. We look forward to learning from your experiences as we collectively reflect on what we can build together in a promising new future for online and blended learning.

Hope to see you there! 

Cody House and Florence Williams

The OLC Accelerate 2023 Program Chairs

Angela Gunder, Online Learning Consortium  

Executive Program Chair

Cody House, George Washington University 

Program Co-chair

Florence Williams, University of Central Florida 

Program Co-Chair