The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence (COTE) is pleased to announce the October issue of the Online Teaching Gazette. Topics in this monthly publication include open education resources (OER) and rethinking faculty support. (Buffalo State will host a discipline-specific OER Boot Camp on Friday, October 16.)

As your FACT² representative, I encourage you to subscribe to the Online Teaching Gazette to stay informed on topics of interest to the community of online practitioners. You can receive updates and future issues to your inbox by subscribing to the publication; enter your e-mail address in the "Subscribe to updates" field.

Open SUNY COTE celebrates, connects, and fosters effective online practitioners across the SUNY system while furthering our knowledge of the most effective teaching and learning practices in online education. The SUNY Faculty Advisory Council on Teaching and Technology (FACT²) is an advisory body to the SUNY provost, acting as an advocate and resource for university stakeholders at the nexus of technology, pedagogy, and research.

You can join COTE as a fellow. Visit the Open SUNY website for more information.

The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence (COTE) has launched a collaborative initiative with the University of Central Florida (UCF) to recognize excellence in online and blended teaching practices across SUNY. The goal of this initiative is to create a joint Effective Practices Award Program via the award-winning Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR). TOPR is an open public resource hosted by UCF that reviews, selects, and organizes effective online practices for online faculty, instructional designers, and other online teaching and learning practitioners. By combining our online effective practice program with TOPR to collect and showcase online effective practices, we eliminate duplication of efforts and contribute to an already recognized national repository of effective online practices, while providing opportunities for Open SUNY online practitioners to share their effective practices on a national level.

The call for new effective practices submissions is open; entries will be accepted until Saturday, October 31. Entries should describe an online or blended teaching strategy drawn from the pedagogical practices submitted by online/blended practitioners, and include a solid description of the practice with concrete examples, relevant professional practice, or research literature and key words connecting to other practices.

Please consider submitting an entry using the submission form. Please browse the resources listed in the Quicklinks menu before submitting your entry.

Selected entries will be announced in November through TOPR and presented to the Open SUNY COTE Community for peer voting in anticipation of conferring the Open SUNY COTE Effective Practices Awards at the 2016 Open SUNY COTE Summit.

If you have questions or access difficulties, please contact contactcote@suny.edu for assistance.

The 25th annual SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology (CIT 2016), sponsored by the SUNY Faculty Advisory Council on Teaching and Technology (FACT²), will take place May 31–June 3 on the campus of SUNY Potsdam. All SUNY campuses, state-operated, statutory, and community colleges are invited to submit abstracts to present at the conference. Proposals from outside the SUNY system are welcome as well. Proposals are due by Thursday, December 31.

CIT is SUNY's largest and most prominent event on instructional technology, providing a forum for faculty, instructional support professionals, and policymakers to present, discuss, and explore innovative avenues for integrating technology into the teaching and learning environment.

Guidelines for Presentation Submission
This year’s conference theme, "Students at the Center: Creating and Sharing Learning Experiences," is supported by the following tracks: 

• Open Educational Resources: Strategies, Advantages, and Savings for Students and Faculty in Practice
• Engaging Students: Tools and Strategies
• Inquiry: Scholarship, Discovery, and Innovation
• Student and Faculty Support: Access and Accessibility
• Going Mobile

Abstract submissions are being accepted at the introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels and in the following formats: presentation, panel, birds of a feather, hands-on demo, ignite, workshop, special interest group, and poster. Please visit the CIT website to view detailed descriptions and to submit a proposal.

To submit a proposal, click "Submit Your Proposal" and follow these steps:

1. New users, click on "Create New Account."
2. Enter the required information and click "Next Step."
3. Create a password and click "Finish."
4. Click on the link "CIT Abstract Submission."
5. Complete the submission form.
6. Remember to "save draft" frequently,
7. Click "Submit Application" when complete.

Faculty and staff members are invited to register for a five-day virtual conference, "Exploring the Intersection of Writing with Technology," October 5–9, during the third annual Student Success Week, sponsored by Turnitin. The conference will explore how technology affects writing instruction and the student learning experience. Hear techniques and strategies for using digital tools to increase student engagement and improve writing skills.

Presentations include:

• No Laptop Left Behind?
• Digital Tools for Writing Instruction
• Writing and the Visual: Graphically Organizing Your Writing
• Crowdsourcing in the Classroom to Enhance Reading, Writing, and Presenting
• Writing By Hand, Keyboard, Voice, and Beyond
• “The Network Effect”: Amplification and Opportunities for Global Feedback
• The Future of Writing: I Wandered Lonely in the Cloud

Registrants who cannot attend during the allotted times may request links to the recordings. More information and registration information are available on the Turnitin website.

The Buffalo State Child Care Center has two slots available for the Buffalo Public Schools–sponsored universal pre-K program. To be eligible, children must be residents of the city of Buffalo and have been born in 2011. The free program runs from 8:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., with affordable wrap-around services available. Parents or guardians must provide transportation for their children.

Please e-mail the Child Care Center or visit the website for enrollment information.

Join 2015 committee chairs Gary and Joan Crosby and our club ambassador Richard Lee in support of Dining Out for Life at Campus House on Tuesday, October 6. Dining Our for Life is an annual fundraising event to benefit HIV and AIDS service organizations. Campus House will receive contributions from members and guests during the lunch hours of 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to fight HIV and AIDS. All you have to donate is your appetite. Reservations are recommended: 878-3300. Thank you.

A training session on Blackboard Learn 9.1: Enterprise Surveys will be held on Friday, October 16, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Please register online.

Enterprise Surveys is a system tool that provides a way to collect feedback from specified groups of people. Surveys can be sent to any selection of courses or departments or to the entire institution. Surveys can also be sent to e-mail addresses outside the system. This training will focus on how to create a survey in Blackboard, how to deploy it in the most efficient manner, and how to create a report to analyze the results.

This workshop presentation will be one hour and is limited to 10 participants. The instructor will be available for an additional 30 minutes after the workshop for additional questions and discussion.

Youngha Ryu, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Texas Christian University, will present "Chemical Biology of Bacteria: N-terminal Protein Modification and Riboswitches" at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, October 15, in Classroom Building B119. This seminar series is sponsored by the Faculty-Student Association. An abstract of his talk appears below.

Abstract
In eukaryotes, N-terminal acetylation is one of the most common post-translational modifications of proteins and plays a significant role in the activity of certain proteins. Nevertheless, this particular modification has been reported for only a few endogenous proteins and several recombinant proteins in bacteria. In this seminar, an N-terminal acetyltransferase involved in this rare bacterial N-terminal protein acetylation and its substrate specificity are presented. Also presented are a few methods for the N-terminal selective chemical modification of proteins.

Mainly found in bacteria, riboswitches are mRNA structures that specifically bind their natural ligand and consequently control the expression of the genes associated with the biosynthesis, transport, or degradation of the specific ligand. Riboswitches have been discovered for many important cellular metabolites including amino acids, nitrogenous bases, and coenzymes. In this seminar, the rational design and synthesis of fluorescent small molecules that probe these natural riboswitches are presented. Our recent efforts in developing synthetic riboswitches that control gene expression in response to exogenous ligands are also presented.

Enjoy 10 percent off the Residential Dining Hall during lunch on Tuesday, October 6, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day. Be sure to show your faculty or staff ID to the cashier to receive the discount.

Did you know that in the Western New York community, there are over 5,000 homeless individuals and 186,000 individuals who do not have regular access to food?

Join the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center October 19–23 to observe National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. For over 30 years, the National Coalition for the Homeless has spearheaded this event to inspire communities, college campuses, and businesses to get involved in local initiatives to end homelessness and hunger. This year, the VSLC will facilitate Buffalo State’s participation in this national week through the following events:  

How to Get Involved in Service Workshop
Monday, October 19
noon–1:00 p.m.
Bacon Hall 202

Volunteer Fair
Tuesday, October 20
11:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Campbell Student Union Social Hall

Volunteer with the Food Bank of WNY
Wednesday, October 21
noon–3:30 p.m.

Advocate for Change
?Thursday, October 22
11:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Campbell Student Union Lobby

Butler Library will also sponsor a Food for Fines program throughout the week. Students will have $1 in overdue book fines forgiven for each canned good they donate to the Buffalo State Food Pantry.

Sponsored by the Grant Allocation Committee, the Academic and Student Affairs Office, Butler Library, the Buffalo State Food Pantry, and the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center.