Faculty Fellow: Articulate Storyline

Rebecca Harrington, MA is the Health Educator at SUNY Oneonta where she provides leadership to both the Know Violence interpersonal violence prevention committee and the Alcohol & Other Drug committee. 

Rebecca has contributed many hours to the SUNY system’s initiatives including serving on the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Task Force on Sexual Violence Prevention’s Subcommittee for Student Onboarding and Ongoing Education, contributing posters system-wide that illustrate aspects of the SUNY Sexual Violence Policy in student-friendly ways, and most recently in the development of the SPARC online training course. 

It is through the SPARC that Rebecca learned to use Articulate Storyline to develop a creative commons licensed (through SUNY) online course that met the mandates of prevention education as detailed in NYS Education Law 129B (“Enough is Enough”).  The goal was to offer a low-cost solution to rival third party vendors that were charging increasing sums of money as more states created mandates. To date, more than 150 colleges and universities have downloaded SPARC. SUNY anticipates the training of 1 million college students through this course within three to five years. Rebecca is now developing tools to guide SPARC campuses through that customization process. 

Rebecca has joined the TLTC as a Faculty Fellow, or a member of the SUNY Oneonta community that has expertise in a particular program. Through this, Rebecca shares her knowledge of the software tool Articulate Storyline with others. She serves as a resource in assisting those who may want to implement this program in their own ways. Rebecca shares in her interview just how she became in touch with this software and how she has grown to love it. 

“My journey with Articulate Storyline began in March 2016 when I joined colleagues from SUNY and CUNY in an effort to build an online course designed for incoming students that met the requirements of NYS 129B (“Enough is Enough”). This state law tasked all colleges and universities in New York State to provide incoming students with specific pieces of information about sexual violence: terms and definitions, resources for help, etc. The law also tasked the NYS Department of Health to audit colleges and universities. I had personally been curious about how one could build online content and volunteered to take on the build. I spent the Summer of 2016 and the next year delving into the software and learning way more than I could have expected, including skills like closed captioning and other accessibility aspects of technology and design. I had a lot of sleepless nights too. 
The end result is I really love this tool. It can be used in a lot of ways and has become my “go to” magic trick for relaying content in a user driven way.” 

Some notable mentions of Rebecca include that she was recognized by the American College Health Association’s as a Best New Professional in 2009. She was also the recipient of the SUNY Oneonta Fran Daley award in 2012 in recognition of excellence within the Student Development division. 

Rebecca would love to share her knowledge on this tool with anyone interested. You may contact her via email or swing by her office in the Health Center.