To back his claim concerning the importance of teaching presence, Shea further explained that throughout Fall 2002 SLN provided a number of training workshops in which teacher presence was thoroughly discussed and examined. More than 100 SUNY faculty talked about implementing specific aspects of teaching presence in their online courses, Shea said. "We asked why is it important, how do we measure and identify teaching presence in an online course, and what are some of the instructional design elements that can enhance teaching presence."

One of the outcomes of these workshops was that surveys taken at the end of the following Spring term showed that students who had taken courses from the Fall workshop participants revealed high levels of satisfaction and learning.

Shea and SLN staff have conducted numerous surveys over the years that paint a picture of what constitutes a successful online-learning and teaching practice. "It is our responsibility to try to keep a pulse on how SLN is working, so every semester we do surveys," he said. "We have tens of thousands of survey results on the student experience, and we have thousands of faculty responses, from very lengthy surveys."

The Spring 2003 student survey had 6,000 respondents. About 1,000 of those respondents had taken courses from faculty who had participated in the workshops on teaching presence. These 1,000 students rated their instructors and their courses higher on every measure in the survey that was related to teaching presence, Shea said. "Those instructors who had teaching-presence training were better at drawing in students and promoting discussion, and they were better at keeping students on task and at focusing discussions on specific issues. Students reported learning a lot in those courses. So we know that teaching presence behaviors matter."