The University of California will test-run as many as 25 online classes by winter 2012 as part of efforts to combat budget reductions and rising enrollment demands, according to an announcement by the UC Office of the President.
Once piloted, the classes may be open to enrolled undergraduate students in the UC system.
The process to develop courses will begin on Dec. 13, when interested faculty from any of the 10 UC campuses must submit comprehensive summaries and logistics of their planned courses.
“The purpose of (the program) is to try out these different approaches,” said UC spokesman Steve Montiel. “This is a time to learn as much as we can about what works, what doesn’t work and what might work.”
The structure of these online classes will be completely dependent on what professors submit as the most effective ways to run their classes. Some classes could be taught online only or alongside traditional in-person lectures, depending on what faculty propose, Montiel said.
Details about the online classes will not be available until much later in the planning phase, when an interdisciplinary committee will make recommendations to the Office of the President on what classes meet the standard of UC quality and can move forward.
According to Montiel, student interaction with professors will be closely examined throughout the year that the program is tested.
While the pilot program may be looking into the effectiveness of an online undergraduate curriculum, this is not the first instance of using technology to take the classroom off campus.
Last year, more than 1,200 online classes were offered through the UC extension program.
But unlike the current online UC extension courses that offer transferable credit, the new classes will be examined to see whether they can be offered for UC credit, according to a university statement.
“While the vast majority of the extension courses offer transferable credit, few have UC credit,” according to the statement. “This pilot project seeks to use existing faculty expertise as a base from which to launch an examination of whether UC-credit, online undergraduate courses can be offered across the board in a wide array of disciplines at a level worthy of a highly selective research university such as UC.”
Montiel said one of the key aspects of “UC quality” is the student-teacher interaction, and some students who have taken online classes see the technology as somewhat of a detriment.
“I definitely did not get the full classroom experience, but (online classes) did have their pros and cons,” said first-year sociology student Katie Johnson, who spent the last two-and-a-half years of high school taking classes online.
Johnson said the online programs she took allowed her to work at her own pace and be more flexible in her schedule, but they also prohibited her from establishing real connections with her peers and professors, as everything had to be facilitated through e-mail.
“I would consider (taking online classes) again, but I would never take only online classes,” Johnson said. “I would need to mix it ““ it is pretty hard to go back to doing only online classes.”