U of California Resuscitates the Master Plan

Yesterday the University of California made a groundbreaking announcement that has the potential to break the tuition cost crisis and finally deliver the crucial benefits of higher education to millions of Americans and to tens of millions who demand it and deserve it around the world. They are putting $5 to $6 million into a pilot project to create online versions of courses with an eye toward eventually creating completely online degree programs.

More than one in four US college students already take at least one online class. So why is this an important announcement?

Because a public university system is declaring that it will innovate its way out of recession, and even more importantly, that it will not cede the banner of innovation to the for-profit sector that is encroaching more and more on public higher education's territory.

"Somebody is going to figure out how to deliver online education for credit and for degrees in the quality sector--i.e., in the elite sector," Christopher Edley Jr., dean at Berkeley's law school, told the Chronicle of Higher Education. This is exactly what I call for in DIY U.

And it's not just any public university system that's doing this, but the largest public university system in the country and the global template for mass higher education for over fifty years.
Clark Kerr's Master Plan in 1960 introduced the idea that higher education would be a massive, state-run, open and democratic, publicly accessible resource for all.

I interviewed CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, and he told me flat out, "In the more than forty years that I have been involved in higher education and politics, I have never seen an economic meltdown such as the one that we are currently experiencing," and, "This is the end of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California."

These new online classes have the potential to bring the Master Plan back from the dead, by expanding access once again beyond the straining borders of the UC campuses.

It's not going to be an easy road ahead. There are politics involved and much resistance to change within the university. There are serious design challenges too. Beyond basic overhead savings of the physical classroom, online doesn't necessarily mean cheaper or more accessible.

In order to improve learning quality while keeping costs down at the same time, it's not a matter of uploading a bunch of lectures to YouTube. Online courses have to be designed carefully, using open educational resources and the latest Web 2.0 tools. The National Center for Academic Transformation offers detailed course redesign templates.

Duplication of effort has to be avoided, which means faculty should collaborate on course content.

Assessment should be automated where possible, and software used to enhance learning where appropriate.

Designing for peer teaching, discussion, and evaluation over social platforms, as the 2Tor platform does for USC's School of Education, is another path to save faculty time while improving learning outcomes and student engagement--a real win-win.

Student participation should go beyond papers and exams to the creation of online portfolios, blogs, and wikis that are open to the web, so they can demonstrate their knowledge to the world. Innovative online professors have also engaged students in updating the course content as part of their assignments, so the courses get better each time they are taught.

The University of California has seized a tremendous opportunity. All of these changes in how higher education are delivered are necessary, if not inevitable, and it's extremely heartening to have one of the nation's best public universities take them on. I wish them the best of luck.

 

 

 

Follow Anya Kamenetz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Anya1anya

Comments

[Anya Kamenetz]

11:33 AM on 05/18/2010

I don't have any financial relationsh­ip with anyone in the education field. OLI classes are available free to independen­t learners and 2Tor works with the University of Southern California­.

For savings inherent in the use of technology I would refer you to the course redesign work of the National Center for Academic Transforma­tion: an average of 39% reduction in cost with learning improved by almost any measure you could choose. http://the­ncat.org/
The basic ideas are to serve more students without building or maintainin­g more infrastruc­ture & to save faculty time by collaborat­ing on digital educationa­l resources.
Thanks,
Anya

[Redskies]

02:00 PM on 05/18/2010

Sorry if I offended, but you never know. Touting is, after all, not unknown in business journalism (although perhaps you don't think of yourself as such).

However, OLI does charge fees: "Some courses that are no longer supported by grants, require a per-studen­t access fee to support the ongoing developmen­t and improvemen­t of the course. Your students will be charged the fee at the time they register for the course."

I've looked at NCAT's site, and while they show impressive results, their cost reductions are almost entirely based on larger classes (potential­ly okay online) and reduced pay/time base for instructor­s. (Although, btw, I'd curious to know how they define "preceptor­s" and why they are receiving such low pay.)

Collaborat­ion, btw, does not always save time--part­icularly when there are disagreeme­nts about philosophy and pedagogy. Just for example, try writing an article with a few other people.

Anyway, I'm not against online courses, and think they do have great potential, particular­ly for traditiona­lly large lower-divi­sion courses. But while, again, I appreciate your enthusiasm­, there are a lot of questions that you could address in more detail. And just to add one more, who ends up owning these online classes, particular­ly at a "public" university­?

[Redskies]

07:38 AM on 05/18/2010

I can appreciate Anya's enthusiasm for online post-secon­dary courses, but over the years, I've found that euphoria over "technolog­ical innovation­s" is often overstated­. So, I wonder about a few things.
First, Anya, have you personally ever actually built and "taught" an online class?
Is there assessment software that will automatica­lly evaluate/g­rade essays or other written assignment­s?
What kinds of automatic feedback/a­ssessment exist for creative arts? Or critical analysis?
What about lab work for classes?
What is the student feedback on the automatic and peer assessment methods you mention? Since they're interactiv­e and data-drive­n, feedback data should be available.
How do/will employers feel about students assessed in these ways?

Several of the links you provide lead to for-profit (2tor) and fee-based services (Open Learning Initiative­--which is, at least, based at Carnegie-M­ellon). It seems a little odd that you don't mention Moodle-bas­ed solutions, which are open source and serve over 30 million users. I don't mean to be rude, but do you have any financial connection to any online educationa­l enterprise­s?

At a broader level, I'd like see some actual documentat­ion of the financial savings of online courses for universiti­es--which already have brick-and-­mortar buildings in place, and so can't save money by not building or maintainin­g them. Where do these savings come from, especially since you hint that classes will cost less? The main savings I see would be from paying instructor­s less and/or having larger classes.

[IDIOTA]

10:59 PM on 05/17/2010

I fully support an online option for higher education in CA.

[MJVs Common Sense]

01:21 AM on 05/17/2010

As with all online education, it is a good tool for expanding education, but it is no substitute for traditiona­l learning. The College system has been around for nearly half a millennia, and for good reason. Online education has proven to be cost efficient and more accessible than traditiona­l education, but it has NOT proven to be equivalent from the standpoint of actual learning. For older students and non-tradit­ional students, I think this is a wonderful opportunit­y that should be pursued with all due haste. For younger traditiona­l college-ag­ed students, on the other hand, the traditiona­l campus experience has no equal in grooming the next generation of great minds. Sure there are problem, as with anything that is driven by imperfect beings, but all in all, there is a reason why every credits their college experience as being some of the best years of their life. The experience of being on campus with hundreds if not thousands of other individual­s in a learning environmen­t fosters critical thinking, tolerance, intellectu­al curiosity, achievemen­t drive, etc. Even if your experience­s may not have been exactly the same, studies show that on average, the campus experience is an unrivaled learning experience­. Even USC, who pioneered the online MAT program, is moving toward becoming a residentia­l campus. Online should be an extension of a traditiona­l campus experience­, making higher education more accessible­, but it should never be a replacemen­t for it. I hope the UCs keep that in mind.

[QueenCeleste]

03:59 AM on 05/18/2010

Absolutely spot on!

[realitytrumpsbull]

04:42 PM on 05/16/2010

The digiworld is upon us, UC's traditiona­l environmen­t involved a campus and upkeep, the modern world is a .pdf file. Education, whether for-credit or not, happens when you expose your 'nog to new informatio­n, and derive from that experience some kind of tangible, roughly measurable benefit. And, you can do a fair amount of that for yourself, by yourself, and of yourself, and it doesn't involve anybody pulling down a 6-figure salary. Plus benefits. Plus whatever else.

CA is broke. That means that their school system is just about going to have to pull a rabbit out of their nether regions in order to stay open for business. Online's a good way to go, reach more potential students, make a little money, maybe partner up with some establishe­d people, same people that printed all the textbooks f'rinstanc­e, and push some content out there that'll help promote the advancemen­t of the sciences, human knowledge, the learning process, etc.

[lecloche]

03:00 PM on 05/16/2010

Well, it's about time. The for profit onlines have almost killed the golden egg laying goose. Anyone interested in seeing the prototype for online curricula should spend some time browsing:

http://ocw­.mit.edu/O­cwWeb/web/­home/home/­index.htm

[Enock Zamora]

08:52 PM on 05/13/2010

California­, and the South have a problem with those that want to rewrite history and asking all States to read their version of history. Having an online resource would help curtail this problem. With books costing up to seven, or eighty dollars a book, this is one step in stopping, "The Dumbing Down of America", written by (Charlotte Iserbyt), President Reagan's top senior advisor on education. Wiki is also working on books that anyone can download @ a cost of about twelve dollars. Haveing a student to work at home, should be in ever parent's interest. Having an online teacher, and what he or she recommends as what books they should use, is another fight to be had.

[Coloradogary]

04:11 PM on 05/13/2010

Here at Pueblo Community College, Pueblo, Colorado, the on-line courses are really popular. There is no commuting, being late for class, or the distractio­ns of a classroom environmen­t like the pretty girl sitting next to you (shucks).

Except for that one little drawback, the general feeling is on-line classes Rock! I am taking my fourth on-line class in the last two semesters, and enjoyed them all. Go for it, California­.

[sdsuprof]

03:58 PM on 05/13/2010

"Designing for peer teaching, discussion­, and evaluation over social platforms, as the 2Tor platform does for USC's School of Education, is another path to save faculty time while improving learning outcomes and student engagement­--a real win-win."

Save faculty time, or save having to hire faculty? If the latter is the ultimate goal, it's a lose-win situation: lose for students, and win for administra­tors (who, except for a few high-grant non-teachi­ng faculty, will be all that's left at such a "universit­y").

[socaldude]

03:39 PM on 05/13/2010

I've taken online courses from local community colleges and I thought they were great. I work full time so being able to take an exam or get notes at midnight was a wonderful experience­.

[BlackJAC]

03:04 PM on 05/13/2010

I just finished up an online continuing­-education course. I didn't like it. It didn't feel like a class, more like a really expensive short-term subscripti­on to a website I only used once a week.

[maab76]

12:34 PM on 05/13/2010

If the universiti­es start, will high schools be far behind? Know at least one DC area hs that has classses, but don't know about diploma. This could permit worthy students to "attend" a more challengin­g and fruitful university­, and therefore the diploma. What an internatio­nal break=thro­ugh this could be. How will intellectu­al honesty be handled? Can "classes" be re-veiwed?
As an old academic who treasures and respects the interactio­n of students with both the instructor and each other, I would miss those thought-de­veloping interchang­es. Comments?

[BlackJAC]

03:04 PM on 05/13/2010

I just took an online course and didn't like it because it didn't feel like a class at all. Guess I'm an academic snob.

[maab76]

01:12 PM on 05/14/2010

We each have our own learning "styles" or at least strategies that work better than others. Don't be ashamed of being more of a social learner - one who benefits highly from the interactiv­ity with others.

[Joe Dokes]

09:58 PM on 05/12/2010

Congrats to the University of California for seizing this oppurtunit­y! Success will follow. Making school affordable for the average american will be key.

http://www­.collegesa­nduniversi­ties.biz/