Call for Proposals
Present at the 2025 Summit for Online Leadership and Administration (SOLAR) Conference
July 22 - 24, 2025 in Portland, OR
Proposals are due January 10, 2025.
The SOLAR event, curated for leaders in postsecondary online learning and digital transformation, welcomes all who care deeply about the access missions and opportunities in academic innovation – recognizing that many individuals contribute to the success of an online enterprise: faculty, instructional designers, student success coaches, program managers, Chief Online Learning Officers (COLOs) and beyond.
Innovation and digital transformation are integral to the future of higher education, particularly when serving institutional access missions through academic entrepreneurship. The event program will address the rapidly changing online and technology-enhanced learning landscape with the most current topics, technologies, and innovations that inform best practices, strategies, thought leadership, and enterprise considerations and improvements.
NEW FOR 2025: The event will have specially curated tracks. Proposals addressing these areas will be given special consideration:
- Learner Analytics, Personalized, and Adaptive Learning
- Serving the Military, Veterans, and Civil Servants (for example, partnering to upskill military and civil service workforces, learning in classified environments, navigating funding and availability of learners, retention/stop-out based on assignments/deployments, etc.)
- Professional development for COLOs (this track has several components but two are sought in the Call for Proposals: Understanding/Building Your Marketing/Enrollment Management Unit and Innovative Budget Models for Online Programs and Enterprises)
Especially of interest are presentations that are highly interactive in format; engage multiple presenters and offer various perspectives across institutions/organizations; and can address the needs of a wide range of institutional types and sizes, as well as diverse populations of students.
The following topics are hallmarks of the SOLAR event and are always welcomed:
- Microcredentials and Credential Innovations
- Online Enterprise Administration and Leadership
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Emerging Technologies (VR, AR, etc.)
- Learning/Instructional Design and Development
- Instructor & Faculty Professional Development
- Research & Emerging Topics
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Graduate Education
- Learner Engagement, Student Success, Inclusivity, Accessibility/UDL, and Equity
- Regulatory Landscape, Policy, and Compliance
Essential Proposal Elements
- Proposals are expected to highlight a deeply relevant topic and explore trends and developments in our field, share innovative solutions, disseminate research, explore emerging or best practices, and/or examine controversial ideas which evoke debate and discussion.
- Proposals will offer learning outcomes/goals and a clear plan to engage the audience, and will denote a particular presentation format as well as content “level” (i.e. foundational, applied, or strategic).
- Presenters are expected to have knowledge and significant experience in online learning and proposals must include complete contact information for all presenters.
- Presenters must be current members of UPCEA, either institutional or corporate. Proposals by corporate members must include a current institutional member as co-presenter. Information about UPCEA membership is found here.
Proposals which do not meet the above elements will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed. Click here to view UPCEA Member-Curated Resources For Submitting Proposals.
Keep in Mind
- Selected presenters are responsible for all expenses incurred in conjunction with the event including registration, housing, and travel. There are no speaker discounts.
- Conference organizers reserve the right to revise presentation titles, designate a conference track, combine sessions, or edit the description of selected presentations for promotional and program publications.
- Session titles should be brief and session descriptions written so as to attract attendees. Prior to submission, presenters should consider viewing the proposal questions and collaborating on their responses prior to submission. A copy of the proposal questions can be found here.
- There will be approximately 35 concurrent sessions, typically 60 minutes in length. Digital copies of presentation materials will be collected from presenters in advance of the conference for dissemination via the event platform and/or mobile app.
- Proposals will be selected to ensure the program offers a comprehensive, noncommercial, objective, and diverse content. Attention will be given to diversity of institutions, presenters and geographic location. Note: due to demand, members are limited to one concurrent session proposal per event.
Selection Process
Proposals will be selected to ensure the event offers a comprehensive, noncommercial, objective, and diverse program. Attention will be given to diversity of institutions, presenters, and geographic location.
All proposals will be peer-reviewed and evaluated on these criteria:
- Relevance to the field of online learning, digital transformation, and innovation
- Depth of knowledge conveyed and expertise of presenters
- Practical methods and techniques that others can use and apply
- Clear learning goals and key takeaways
- Evidence of successful outcomes or lessons learned
- Inclusion of evaluation data and/or established theoretical models
By submitting a proposal, all presenters agree to:
- Attend a presenter briefing session (tentatively scheduled for April 8, 2025)
- Register for the conference by April 15, 2025
- Provide electronic versions of presentations, materials/handouts for attendees by June 20, 2025
- Adhere to all stated deadlines. In the event the presenter(s) do not meet the event deadlines or are uncommunicative, the conference organizers reserve the right to replace/cancel the session and select an alternate presentation in its place.
Timeline
- November 13, 2024: Request for Proposals announced
- January 10, 2025: Proposals due
- Week of February 17, 2025: Selected proposals notified
Sessions (Duration/Format)
- Workshops: 75-minute session providing a deep dive wherein participants are actively, tangibly engaged in their learning, via collaboration and hands-on interaction. Workshop presenters generally spend less than half of the session sharing their ideas, using the remaining time engaged in activity that promotes interaction and discussion, ending with a takeaway for participants.
- Presentation: 60-minute session featuring one to three presenters who share a cohesive series of ideas followed by a robust discussion with the audience. Presentations are sought which involve multiple organizations, as well as content which may be scaled or optimized by attendees from a wide range of institutions.
- Panel: 60-minute session featuring a moderator and two to three panelists from different organizations that can provide insights on a common area of interest. Panelists establish a problem or provide context in the first half of the session and then engage participants in a solutions-focused conversation/Q&A in the latter half.
- Shorter Sessions
- UPCEA Talk: Quickfire introduction of an idea by a single presenter without audience discussion, and with strict guidelines (presentation can be no longer than 6 minutes and use no more than 6 slides, with font no smaller than 28pt). Up to nine or ten Talks are scheduled in one concurrent session, in sequence, to offer attendees numerous, shallow forays into critical topics. A moderator will offer opening remarks, as well as work with Talks presenters to organize a thoughtful order of topics presented, and to ensure smooth, timed transitions between Talks.
- Roundtable: 25 to 30-minute table-based, small-group, guided discussion about a specific and timely topic, question, or issue. During one, 60-minute concurrent session, multiple Roundtable presenters concurrently share their ideas at one round table each (up to 9 attendees can fit at each table), and promote the sharing of thoughts, solutions, and questions among their respective tables’ attendees. Roundtables are designed to provide space and time to important but particularly nuanced topics which deserve attention, and as such, attendees are free to move between tables. The Roundtable session will have a moderator who will welcome attendees, invite them to find a topic/table of their choice, and watch the time, inviting presenters to host their discussions twice during the hour, to allow attendees to engage with up to two different topics.
- Stop & Share: Hosted during one concurrent session in a large room with multiple tables, Stop & Share presenters will each have their own table, as well as a slide template of up to six slides, uploaded to the app and for presentation (on rotation) on their own laptop or tablet, to allow brief, synchronous conversations with attendees stopping in and milling about. Each informal conversation will center around a hot topic, best practice, or technological innovation.
Looking for information on DTL?
Recently UPCEA announced a new direction for the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference. You can read that announcement here. If you would like to be notified when the call for proposals opens for that event (scheduled for February 4-6, 2025), please provide your email here.
Questions?
Please contact info@upcea.edu.
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