Illinois State University Launches SoTL Blog, The SoTL Advocate

by Jennifer Friberg and Kathleen McKinney, Illinois State University

During the fall semester of 2014, the office of the Cross Chair in SoTL at Illinois State University established a new weblog titled The SoTL Advocate to highlight SoTL and to encourage discussion within the SoTL community on various topics of interest to those working in SoTL at ISU and beyond. The SoTL Advocate editorial team invites ISSOTL members to add the blog to their reading lists.

To date, The SoTL Advocate has published original opinion papers about the field of SoTL, shared SoTL resources and tips, and informed readers about SoTL workshops, conference, and experiences. Of interest to the broader SoTL community are the following blog post categories of The SoTL Advocate:

• Reports & Opinions representing invited posts from SoTL researchers describing their projects, methods, opinions, tips/strategies or other aspects of their SoTL work and experience, or the SoTL field more generally.
• SoTL to Inform Scholarly Teaching, in which practical outcomes and applications from SoTL projects are shared to support the work of course instructors and others seeking an evidence-base for their course design and implementation or changes to programs.
• Resource Sharing featuring links to websites, articles, and/or various media for readers to support their SoTL efforts.

Titles of some recent posts include the following: “Tips for Publishing SoTL Work,” “Making a Difference with SoTL: Excerpts from a Published Essay,” “Timing is Everything: Working to Increase Disciplinary Acceptance of SoTL,” and “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same.” Readers are invited to enhance the blog by commenting on posts.

In addition, The SoTL Advocate welcomes submissions of possible guest posts to the blog. Two members of The SoTL Advocate editorial team will review submissions, for appropriateness and quality. Submissions should be MS Word files of 300-600 words and be sent, via email, to sotl@ilstu.edu. Finally, we strongly encourage those from around the globe interested in SoTL to visit and subscribe to the blog.