Monday, July 12, 2010

“UC online degree proposal rattles academics” plus 3 more

“UC online degree proposal rattles academics” plus 3 more

UC online degree proposal rattles academics

Posted: 12 Jul 2010 12:53 AM PDT

Taking online college courses is, to many, like eating at McDonald's: convenient, fast and filling. You may not get filet mignon, but afterward you're just as full.

Now the University of California wants to jump into online education for undergraduates, hoping to become the nation's first top-tier research institution to offer a bachelor's degree over the Internet comparable in quality to its prestigious campus program.

"We want to do a highly selective, fully online, credit-bearing program on a large scale - and that has not been done," said UC Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley, who is leading the effort.

But a number of skeptical faculty members and graduate student instructors fear that a cyber UC would deflate the university's five-star education into a fast-food equivalent, cheapening the brand. Similar complaints at the University of Illinois helped bring down that school's ambitious Global Campus program last fall after just two years.

UC officials say theirs will be different.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, UC's governing Board of Regents will hear about a pilot program of 25 to 40 courses to be developed after UC raises $6 million from private donors. The short-term goal is to take pressure off heavily enrolled general education classes like writing and math, Edley said.

More for less

Long term, the idea is to expand access to the university while saving money. Tuition for online and traditional courses would be the same. But with students able to take courses in their living rooms, the university envisions spending less on their education while increasing the number of tuition-paying students - helpful as state financial support drops.

Savings estimates are "encouraging" but too preliminary to disclose, Edley said, noting that even if the pilot program succeeds, cyber UC is still several years away.

Evidence nationwide suggests students could be warm to the idea of online learning.

The number of college students taking online courses nearly tripled between 2002 and 2008, according to the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit that encourages online education. Nearly 5 million students took at least one online course in 2008, up from 1.6 million in 2002, Sloan found.

UC wouldn't be the first university to offer undergraduate degrees online. Among the most successful is the University of Massachusetts' "UMassOnline," which includes graduate degrees. It reported revenue growth of 20 percent since last year, to $56 million, and 14 percent enrollment growth, to 45,815 students.

Cal State University East Bay also offers four online bachelor degrees: in business administration, human development, tourism and recreation.

The Stanford example

But UC says it's looking for something qualitatively different, possibly like Stanford University's high-end - and cyber - graduate engineering degree.

"Within 30 minutes of a class being taught at Stanford, we're able to offer it around the world," said Andy DiPaolo, senior associate dean at the School of Engineering. "We think in many ways it's comparable (in quality). It's not live instruction. We've tried not to lock students into a specific time."

Students in Stanford's online manufacturing class, for example, live in different time zones yet team up online to design, say, a car lock, DiPaolo said.

"This is not a second-tier program," he said. "We have identical admissions, identical requirements" for online and traditional degrees.

But some UC faculty and graduate student instructors believe removing face-to-face interaction by definition diminishes quality.

In May, student instructors delivered a less-than-subtle warning to the regents.

"We find Dean Edley's cyber campus to be just the beginning of a frightening trajectory that will undoubtedly end in the complete implosion of public higher education" in California, Berkeley doctoral student Shane Boyle testified.

Using a slightly more sober tone, the Berkeley Faculty Association expressed similar concerns in a May report.

"The danger is not only degraded education, but centralized academic policy that undermines faculty control of academic standards and curriculum," it said. "It is also likely that the whole thing will be a boondoggle."

Furthermore, the report said, online instruction is "inappropriate for many subjects and types of learning."

Not inappropriate, countered Edley, but challenging. He acknowledged that figuring out how to put an excellent lab science course online remains "one of the mysteries."

But he agreed with DiPaolo of Stanford that faculty support is key.

Disapproval helped kill the University of Illinois' online program last year, and no wonder: Not only were outsiders hired to teach courses developed by faculty, but courses rejected by faculty were offered online.

"Setting up something the faculty doesn't believe in would be nuts," Edley said. And yet, taking UC online needs only a "coalition of the willing," he said, "not universal support."

Regents meeting

The UC Board of Regents will meet Tuesday through Thursday at UCSF-Mission Bay Community Center, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco.

Discussion: The Committee on Educational Policy will discuss five items, including the online undergraduate degree pilot project, beginning at 9:35 a.m. Wednesday.

-- Learn more about the pilot project. sfgate.com/ZJYX and sfgate.com/ZJYY

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

UC online degree proposal rattles academics

Posted: 12 Jul 2010 12:02 AM PDT

Taking online college courses is, to many, like eating at McDonald's: convenient, fast and filling. You may not get filet mignon, but afterward you're just as full.

Now the University of California wants to jump into online education for undergraduates, hoping to become the nation's first top-tier research institution to offer a bachelor's degree over the Internet comparable in quality to its prestigious campus program.

"We want to do a highly selective, fully online, credit-bearing program on a large scale - and that has not been done," said UC Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley, who is leading the effort.

But a number of skeptical faculty members and graduate student instructors fear that a cyber UC would deflate the university's five-star education into a fast-food equivalent, cheapening the brand. Similar complaints at the University of Illinois helped bring down that school's ambitious Global Campus program last fall after just two years.

UC officials say theirs will be different.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, UC's governing Board of Regents will hear about a pilot program of 25 to 40 courses to be developed after UC raises $6 million from private donors. The short-term goal is to take pressure off heavily enrolled general education classes like writing and math, Edley said.

More for less

Long term, the idea is to expand access to the university while saving money. Tuition for online and traditional courses would be the same. But with students able to take courses in their living rooms, the university envisions spending less on their education while increasing the number of tuition-paying students - helpful as state financial support drops.

Savings estimates are "encouraging" but too preliminary to disclose, Edley said, noting that even if the pilot program succeeds, cyber UC is still several years away.

Evidence nationwide suggests students could be warm to the idea of online learning.

The number of college students taking online courses nearly tripled between 2002 and 2008, according to the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit that encourages online education. Nearly 5 million students took at least one online course in 2008, up from 1.6 million in 2002, Sloan found.

UC wouldn't be the first university to offer undergraduate degrees online. Among the most successful is the University of Massachusetts' "UMassOnline," which includes graduate degrees. It reported revenue growth of 20 percent since last year, to $56 million, and 14 percent enrollment growth, to 45,815 students.

Cal State University East Bay also offers four online bachelor degrees: in business administration, human development, tourism and recreation.

The Stanford example

But UC says it's looking for something qualitatively different, possibly like Stanford University's high-end - and cyber - graduate engineering degree.

"Within 30 minutes of a class being taught at Stanford, we're able to offer it around the world," said Andy DiPaolo, senior associate dean at the School of Engineering. "We think in many ways it's comparable (in quality). It's not live instruction. We've tried not to lock students into a specific time."

Students in Stanford's online manufacturing class, for example, live in different time zones yet team up online to design, say, a car lock, DiPaolo said.

"This is not a second-tier program," he said. "We have identical admissions, identical requirements" for online and traditional degrees.

But some UC faculty and graduate student instructors believe removing face-to-face interaction by definition diminishes quality.

In May, student instructors delivered a less-than-subtle warning to the regents.

"We find Dean Edley's cyber campus to be just the beginning of a frightening trajectory that will undoubtedly end in the complete implosion of public higher education" in California, Berkeley doctoral student Shane Boyle testified.

Using a slightly more sober tone, the Berkeley Faculty Association expressed similar concerns in a May report.

"The danger is not only degraded education, but centralized academic policy that undermines faculty control of academic standards and curriculum," it said. "It is also likely that the whole thing will be a boondoggle."

Furthermore, the report said, online instruction is "inappropriate for many subjects and types of learning."

Not inappropriate, countered Edley, but challenging. He acknowledged that figuring out how to put an excellent lab science course online remains "one of the mysteries."

But he agreed with DiPaolo of Stanford that faculty support is key.

Disapproval helped kill the University of Illinois' online program last year, and no wonder: Not only were outsiders hired to teach courses developed by faculty, but courses rejected by faculty were offered online.

"Setting up something the faculty doesn't believe in would be nuts," Edley said. And yet, taking UC online needs only a "coalition of the willing," he said, "not universal support."

Regents meeting

The UC Board of Regents will meet Tuesday through Thursday at UCSF-Mission Bay Community Center, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco.

Discussion: The Committee on Educational Policy will discuss five items, including the online undergraduate degree pilot project, beginning at 9:35 a.m. Wednesday.

-- Learn more about the pilot project. sfgate.com/ZJYX and sfgate.com/ZJYY

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Critics: online degrees would hurt UC prestige

Posted: 12 Jul 2010 09:19 PM PDT

DAVIS, Calif. (KABC) -- At first, it will just be a pilot program with a few dozen credit-bearing courses offered online.

Then if successful, the University of California system could start offering some online undergraduate degrees.

The pitch will be made at this week's Board of Regents meeting.

"There are no prestigious, elite, selective, great universities offering online education," UC Vice Provost Daniel Greenstein said. "There's an opportunity extend and enhance the quality of the brand by demonstrating that we can do it not just right, but really well."

Some campuses, like UCLA and Berkeley, already offer online courses, but they're mostly through the extension arm.

In these tight-budget times, online degrees could be a way to serve more students.

University of Massachusetts has one of the most successful online degree programs in the country, reporting a 20 percent increase in revenue and a 14 percent enrollment growth.

But UMass is no UC, and that's what worries some students.

While they embrace technology, they feel the prestige of a UC degree would diminish if online degrees were to be offered.

"The degree doesn't actually reflect the amount of work, the intelligence someone actually puts in the hard work to go through a UC education," said George Jeung, a student.

Professors, too, said there's still value in learning the old fashioned way.

"The classroom experience is best," said Dr. Winfried Schleiner, a professor of English literature."The learning experience, the exchange of ideas between live people."

But Thomas Maxwell thinks the classroom experience can be overrated. The student is taking a summer online course from a school in Utah because UC Davis stopped offering a science class he needed.

"I can remember freshman chemistry," Maxwell said. "It's the professor and 500 students. If you think you're going to get to ask a question, it's probably not going to happen."

UC says it'll make sure the system's prestige isn't hurt.

For now, administrators hope to raise $6 million in private donations for the pilot program, with an eye on possible online degrees in the future.


Get more California News »


california news, nannette miranda

Recently Published




Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

UC considering online undergraduate degree program

Posted: 12 Jul 2010 04:47 PM PDT

 

DAVIS, CA - At first, it'll just be a pilot program with just a few dozen credit-bearing courses offered online.

Then if successful, the University of California system could start offering some online undergraduate degrees.

The pitch will be made at this week's Board of Regents meeting.

"There are no prestigious, elite selective great universities offering online education," said UC Vice Provost Daniel Greenstein. "There's an opportunity to enhance the quality of the brand by demonstrating that we can do it not just right, but really well."

Some campuses, like UCLA and Berkeley, already offer online courses, but they're mostly through the extension arm.

In these tight budget times, online degrees could be a way to get serve more students who are already crammed in classrooms or completely shut out of classes.

The University of Massachusetts has one of the most successful online degree programs, reporting a 20 percent increase in revenue and 14 percent enrollment growth. But U-Mass is not UC.

That worries some students. While they embrace technology, they feel the prestige of UC degree would diminish if online degrees were to be offered.

"The degree doesn't actually reflect the amount of work, the intelligence someone actually put the hard work, to go through a UC education," said UC Davis student George Jeung.

Professors, too, say there's still value in learning the old-fashioned way.

"The classroom experience is best ... the learning, experience, the exchange of ideas between live ," said English Literature Professor Dr. Winfried Schleiner.

But student Thomas Maxwell thinks the classroom experience can be over-rated. He's taking a summer online course from a school in Utah because UC Davis stopped offering a science class he needed. Maxwell likes it.

"I can remember freshman chemistry," Maxwell said. "It's the professor and 500 students. If you think you're going to get to ask a question, it's probably not going to happen."

UC says it'll make sure the system's prestige isn't hurt. For now, administrators hope to raise $6 million in private donations for the pilot program, with an eye on possible online degrees in the future.

Nannette Miranda
ABC7 

ABC7

Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)