Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 15, 2010 The University of California Board of Regents reacted enthusiastically Wednesday to developing a fully online undergraduate degree program at the top-tier research institution they oversee, and endorsed a pilot program to test it. “We have the opportunity to show everyone else how to do it,” said Regent Sherry Lansing. “This should be one of our highest priorities. We cannot wait.” Despite earlier warnings from professors and instructors that taking UC online would destroy the university’s good name and quality, several regents said they were convinced of just the opposite: that UC has the brainpower – and the motives – to develop the nation’s first highly selective, Web-based degree program for undergraduates. [...]
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UC must put emphasis on education, not brand Timothy Hampton,Garrison Sposito Tuesday, July 13, 2010 The UC Board of Regents will discuss this week a proposal by the University of California president’s office for an ambitious plan to market UC online. The proposal entertains the vision of an eventual online bachelor’s degree that could tap new students throughout the world, from “Sheboygan to Shanghai.” In fact, the track record for online higher education is very uneven. It requires enormous up-front investments and continual investments for upgrades. Given these high stakes and the financial pressures on UC in the current economic climate, it is crucial for California’s public university to move prudently. As educators and scholars, we are, like our students, [...]
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by Nanette Asimov, July 12, 2010 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 [...]
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by Sharon Farmer History, UC Santa Barbara [via Remaking the University by Chris Newfield on 7/6/10] At its April, 2010 meeting, the Systemwide Academic Council of the UC Faculty Senate endorsed a revised version of a pilot project on online learning that had been brought forward by the UC Office of the President and endorsed by the Faculty Senate’s University Committee on Educational Policy. In its April endorsement, the Academic Council emphasized that it would not support the use of existing university funds to develop the pilot, and that the purpose of the pilot program was to endeavor to find out how, under what circumstances, and if, quality online learning could fit the education goals and mission of the University [...]
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