Progress Toward Strategic Goals
DELTA implemented a new strategic plan in fiscal year 2026 focused on leading the way in designing, creating and supporting extraordinary digital learning experiences.
Major highlights this year include beginning a multi-year transition to the Canvas learning management system, supporting AI in teaching and learning, creating Academic Testing Services, providing significant digital accessibility support and more. Continue exploring highlights and stories for a behind-the-scenes look at the progress we’ve made toward our strategic goals.
DELTA Goal 1: Innovate
- Advanced the Moodle-to-Canvas transition through a phased multi-year rollout plan, including stakeholder engagement (Learning Technologies Town Hall, Canvas Evaluators and student researchers), technical integration, faculty and staff preparation, strategic communications and ongoing collaboration with UNC System peer institutions.
- Launched the first Learning Technologies Town Hall focused on the Learning Management System (LMS) transition to Canvas with 210 participants.
- Revised the AI Fluency for Instructors: Practical Tools for Teaching Tasks workshop series, offering 25 workshops with 1,900 enrollments.
- Impacted thousands of students through 60+ DELTA Grants and DELTA Express Grants projects focused on addressing unique instructional challenges, course improvements based on the Quality Matters rubric, design and development of instructional materials, hybrid learning, course accessibility, virtual tours and more.
- Piloted a successful, scalable, program-level design and curriculum mapping model through a partnership with the Master of Geospatial Information Science and Technology program.
- Supported 10 courses in earning Quality Matters (QM) certification, bringing the total to 99 QM-certified courses at NC State. QM-certified courses impact more than 22,000 students annually.
- Launched the Applying Course Essentials (ACE) program — a new faculty development initiative providing a scalable pathway for instructors to implement evidence-based course design practices through a combination of asynchronous learning, consultation and course review certification.
- Grew DELTA Workshops enrollment from 1,183 to 4,458 through 119 workshops. The team also led 17 custom workshops, helping colleges and departments address discipline-specific instructional technology needs.
- Co-facilitated the Conference on Faculty Excellence with 207 NC State attendees and 16 external attendees, while expanding programming to 29 sessions.
- Expanded on-demand resources by publishing 466 new knowledge base articles (KBAs) and updating an additional 473 articles, and increased workshop recording views and downloads.
- Co-led the AI Community of Practice (CoP) with 85 members.
- Partnered with the NC State Libraries to host NC State’s first-ever Extended Reality (XR) Showcase, providing faculty and staff with hands-on opportunities to explore immersive learning technologies.
- Supported virtual reality classroom engagement through 12 courses, six public-facing events and eight consultations.
- Continued exploring and implementing immersive learning projects through virtual reality (VR) classroom engagement efforts and various consultations across campus.
- Provided evaluation, assessment and research expertise to support innovation, continuous improvement and evidence-based decision-making.
Stories and related links
- DELTA to Host Virtual Town Hall on Canvas LMS Transition
- 10 Tips from DELTA’s AI Fluency Series
- Inside NC State’s VR Fitness Revolution: How Renee Harrington, Ph.D., is Reimagining Immersive Wellness
- From “Dry Content” to “Plant Murder Mysteries”: How One DELTA Grant Reimagined Student Engagement
- From Study Tips to Study Science: The Story Behind NC State’s Study Smart Series
- Faculty Commitment to Student Success Through QM Certification
DELTA Goal 2: Optimize
- Merged DELTA Testing Services and the Disability Resource Office Proctoring Center to create Academic Testing Services. Administratively housed in DELTA, Academic Testing Services expanded locations and availability to provide more students with exam accommodations.
- Continued to invest in WolfWare’s reliable and robust enterprise suite of instructional technologies and tools, which are used by more than 93% of students. DELTA-supported online and classroom technologies help instructors provide meaningful learning experiences for all students.
- Evaluated several instructional tools including Yellowdig, WolfWare WordPress and H5P.
- Supported WolfWare Outreach and streamlined billing processes to improve accuracy and efficiency.
- Provided full-service support for seven DELTA classrooms — monitored and controlled from a central control room (CCR). DELTA classrooms offer embedded synchronous distance learning components and high-touch, real-time support.
- Produced virtual tours of the DELTA Classrooms to increase faculty awareness, understanding and utilization of DELTA’s technology-advanced classrooms and support services.
- Partnered with the Office of Equal Opportunity to better support Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
- Created a Power BI roadmap to launch a set of business operations KPI dashboards in fiscal year 2027 to give DELTA one shared view of budgets, spending behavior and workflow activity.
- Provided project management support to optimize DELTA workflows and provide crucial support for both large, enterprise projects and smaller interdepartmental projects where coordination and communication are critical.
Stories and related links
- Tech-Enabled Teaching, Expertly Supported: Inside DELTA Classrooms at NC State
- DELTA Collaboration Expands Classroom Accessibility for Deaf* and Hard-of-Hearing Students
- NC State Expands Accommodated Testing Access with Academic Testing Services
- Listening, Learning and Leading: DELTA’s Commitment to Supporting NC State’s Distance Education Students
DELTA Goal 3: Partner
- Partnered with campus accessibility staff to launch AccessFest — held twice in fiscal year 2026 to provide faculty with hands-on remediation support and personalized consultations.
- Supported a number of campus partners to move forward with initiatives, including the OASIS Accelerator project, NC State Continuing and Lifelong Education’s New Program Innovation pilot, accessibility initiatives and more.
- Continued support of Wicked Problems, Wolfpack Solutions, in its seventh year, offered to more than 8,000 incoming students. The team collaborated with 54 faculty and staff across all 12 NC State colleges and seven units, institutes and centers campus-wide.
- Partnered with the Graduate School to support strategic program reviews, piloting a benchmarking process for online courses within graduate programs undergoing internal review.
- Refined the Syllabus Template to match UNC System office regulations and best practices.
- Hosted the Distance Education Program Faculty and Staff Forum to bring together faculty and staff to network, share best practices and highlight resources to strengthen distance education programs and support student success.
- Collaborated with the Office of Faculty Excellence on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) resources and planning for future sessions. The DELTA team developed a COIL primer to give NC State instructors a clear, accessible starting point for designing meaningful global learning experiences.
- Processed a record 240,328 registrations using REPORTER.
- Continued the shared business services model with NC State Continuing and Lifelong Education. The partnership focuses on operational alignment, data-driven decision-making and employee engagement — laying the groundwork for a more agile, efficient and collaborative future.
- Led the university’s National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) compliance and analyzed distance education enrollment data and out-of-state learning placement data to meet NC-SARA requirements.
- Continued to partner with NC State Libraries on Alt-Textbook Projects, funding 19 course projects with the potential to save more than 6,300 students nearly $144,924 annually.
DELTA Goal 4: Amplify
- Promoted DELTA’s services and programs within the university through DELTA News articles, the monthly DELTA Connections newsletter, the Bulletin and more channels.
- Led NC State Online brand awareness marketing to increase visibility, strengthen recognition and create long-term demand for online education at NC State. The team increased searches for NC State Online by more than 535%.
- Expanded DELTA’s reach by hosting the Educational Technology Collaborative (ETC) national conference with more than 250 attendees. DELTA’s Vice Provost Donna Petherbridge gave the keynote address which positioned NC State as an educational technology leader.
- Established regular communication touchpoints across DELTA to create a sustainable process for identifying, promoting and amplifying innovative work happening across the division.
- Increased engagement and participation in key initiatives and events such as AccessFest, DELTA Grants, AI Fluency workshop series, XR Showcase, DELTA Classrooms and more.
- Participated in numerous NC State-focused and external working groups and committees to share best practices and position DELTA as a leader in digital teaching and learning.
- Elevated DELTA’s thought leadership through ongoing promotion of the Dialogues in Digital Teaching and Learning Podcast, showcasing innovative practices and expert perspectives from across the educational technology community.
DELTA Goal 5: Nurture
- Planned DELTA’s main office move to Keystone Science Center. The new space will support flexible and hybrid work and will include a media production studio to replace the current Park Shops space. This opportunity not only streamlines operations but also achieves a 26% reduction in overall space use and will allow us to return the offices we use in Park Shops to the university for future planned auxiliary services for East Campus in that space.
- Established four working groups to ensure DELTA’s main office move to Keystone has intentional input from staff.
- Received a Gold Well Wolfpack — marking nine consecutive years of Gold Level Certification for DELTA.
- Strengthened HR support and equity practices by partnering with the Wellness Champion committee on accommodations and leave, modernizing employee resources and providing clear, consistent guidance on compensation, reclassifications and supervisory benchmarks — reinforcing a culture of care, trust and integrity.
- Continued to support the DELTA Activities Committee with events this year including a DELTA birthday party, trivias, coffee chats, DELTA picnic and more.
- Continued to integrate change management practices alongside existing project management and Agile best practices.