The University of California's 10 campuses, facing severe budget cuts, may no longer be able to educate as many students as before. This month Christopher Edley Jr., dean of Boalt Hall, the law school on the Berkeley campus, proposed a surprising solution in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece: Open an 11th campus, online. Mr. Edley found receptive ears in Sacramento, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's adviser for jobs and economic growth, David Crane, says it "is something we are very interested in hearing more about."
Mr. Edley obliges, in an interview with The Chronicle:
Q. Why is an online campus an urgent issue?
A. My primary passions are in the racial-justice arena, and it's perfectly predictable that underrepresented minorities will increasingly be left behind unless we find new strategies.
Q. What made you consider online education?
A. Many transfer-ready students in the community-college system were opting to go to the University of Phoenix rather than go to UC. Even more surprising, this phenomenon was disproportionately true for blacks and Latinos. My hypothesis is that it is because of the convenience—the ability to do part-time, anytime course work, the ability to work part time, stay at home, et cetera. So the question is, How do we go about creating a model for online instruction that has the quality characteristic of a UC education and that can be done at a scale that would permit the university to service the entire 12.5 percent of the California college-aged cohort that the state's master plan for higher ed contemplates? We're currently only serving about 60 percent [of that proportion of the cohort].
Q. Opening up an online campus has upfront costs. How could this program be financed?
A. I am very confident that if we decide to move forward, we can raise private resources for the upfront investment, either from donations from friends of the university that are eager to see us develop new revenue streams, or from private investors who would front the capital in return for a slice of the net revenues.
Q. How have faculty members reacted to your proposal of an 11th online campus?
A. The reactions have been mixed, but I think cautiously supportive. There are only a few people that are immediately and decisively dismissive. Most, I think, can imagine something working at some level at some point, so the devil is in the details.
This has got to be more than a course here and a course there to reduce pressure on the political-science department or the gateway course in nanotechnology. I'd say wait until we present a fully developed plan.
On the Berkeley campus, there's a significant body of opinion that thinks professional master's degrees may be more promising than undergraduate offerings. That's not my sense of the possibilities, but I could well be wrong. It could be that both upper- and lower-division degrees work.
Q. How would you ensure that the quality of the online campus is at a University of California level?
A. First, use the best teachers and very high production values in the video offerings, not just setting up a camera in the back of the room while somebody delivers their lecture. Second, each course has to have content assessments and grading that are every bit equal to what one gets on campus. Third, the tuition has to be sufficient to support this venture completely, so that it doesn't pull state appropriations away from the traditional on-campus enterprise. As a practical matter, my personal view is that tuition should be equal to the on-campus tuition, in part to signal that we really do expect the quality to be the same.
Q. What are the benefits for students?
A. Students would still have considerable savings because they wouldn't have housing costs and many of the other financial burdens involved in full-time campus education.
I also think that one important possibility here is that online offerings, particularly in the lower division, could relieve the pressure on in-class instruction or for on-campus students that currently face the squeeze getting into key gateway courses.
Ideally, one would have on-campus and online students enrolled in the same offering, which would further underscore the academic equivalence of the course work.
Q. Would the cybercampus be restricted to California students?
A. I think the potential market for this is not only tens upon tens of thousands of UC-eligible students for whom we don't have room because of limited state appropriations, but also [those] in Kentucky and Kuala Lumpur who may find that a cyberdegree from the world's greatest public university is better than the options available to them locally.
Q. Should current faculty members teach these courses, or would the university look for new professors?
A. The faculty leading this would have to be core tenure-track UC faculty. It's a UC degree, and the Academic Senate—appropriately—would insist that the faculty would be indistinguishable from the traditional faculty. So I would expect that the best faculty would teach regular courses, and that some cybercourses would be included in their course mix. There would have to be an instructor of record and graduate students available for one-on-one contact and for grading purposes.
My own hope is that various campuses in our 10-campus system will develop lower-division online programs using their own faculty or borrowing from other campuses. Then the upper-division work, where students have to declare a major and expect more-specific offerings, would be carried out at the level of the UC system, drawing on faculty resources from all 10 campuses. So in the lower division, students would get totally transferable equivalent credits at say, Berkeley or Santa Barbara, but then the upper-division work would lead to a B.A. from the UC cybercampus.
Q. Have you ever taught in an online setting? Would you teach in the online campus?
A. I have not but would love to. Look, if you have pride in your teaching and you get satisfaction out of reading papers and final exams that demonstrate how much progress your students have made, then … technology that allows you to multiply your impact beyond the four walls of your classroom can be an exciting prospect, especially if you don't have to grade all of the exams yourself.
Q. Have you spoken with the president [Mark G. Yudof], Board of Regents, or other administrators about your suggestion?
A. I've spoken with the president and casually with a few regents, and there is a strong willingness to explore it seriously. The president and I have talked about it quite a bit, and he's given his enthusiastic blessing to aggressively exploring these options, and we're beginning that work.
Q. How soon might an online campus become real?
I'm notoriously impatient about things like this, so my own view is that basic offerings at the lower-division level should be identified and produced by this spring in order to offer people admission to lower-division work in the admissions cycle late fall. But most of my colleagues suspect that I'm on drugs.
In all seriousness, I feel some sense of urgency about this for fiscal reasons. That has to be balanced with an appropriate caution. You have to do this right—the quality, the marketing, student support. It needs to be first-rate right out of the box. Otherwise it doesn't deserve the UC label.
Comments
1. kathden - July 23, 2009 at 06:42 am
How about the medical school, too! "The best faculty," "a professor of record," "graduate students" for one-on-one contact and grading: I smell bait-and-switch. Who says that administrators aren't superior to the rest of us!
2. miapia1 - July 23, 2009 at 07:22 am
With all due respect Dean Edley, look around the country at on-line colleges. They promise much and deliver little in terms of quality. Look closely at the University of Phoenix model. The UC system would need to make a substantial on-going investment in such an effort and on-going funding is not so easily acquired from private donors. I am not from or in California and I truly wish the best for UC because it is such a large important system, but quick fixes of the on-line nature are a pipe dream.
3. jhough1 - July 23, 2009 at 07:36 am
Anyone who doesn't realize that this is the wave of the future lives in a cloud. And with a few professors teaching thousands, as they do through textbooks, it is clear how it is going to be financed--through a cutting of costs on campus teaching. The real problem is the one Dean Edley brags about. We will move towards an education system segregated by economic class. As on-campus tuition soars, the types of courses (e.g., science) where labs are necessary will be open only to those who can afford them. We may have to change scholarship programs so that they do not go to humanities and social studies students who can go on line. I say this with regret as a political scientist who knows he taught during a golden age that is passing.
4. kleinl - July 23, 2009 at 08:00 am
I wonder if Dean Edley read the front page of this week's July 24th Chronicle, which points to some research showing student boredom in e-learning. The quality of instruction is an important issue here and all Edley seems to be concerned with is giving students access to a computer machine. Edley really is looking for quick fixes. Real teaching can only happen when live people talk with each other. Why should he charge students to learn from a machine on-line and assume that a machine can "teach" better than a knowledgeable live person? Edley's proposal is analagous to saying we should send students to the library to learn and they do not need a teacher to teach them.
5. susancolaric - July 23, 2009 at 08:16 am
Real, quality learning occurs every day in the online environment. Look to Penn State, University of Maryland, and Saint Leo University for quality courses and programs led by excellent faculty. Don't dismiss the delivery method until you have examined how it can be done well to reach those students who are not able to move to a traditional campus. It is the instructional method and careful crafting of the instructional environment that leads to effective learning.
6. awfutr01 - July 23, 2009 at 09:17 am
Mr. Edley's mention of Kentucky as a place where folks might want to forego their local options and enroll in the California Vaporware University is curious. Kentucky is one of few states that already has a successful virtual university. I hope the other research he does before engaging in this initiative is more thorough than his superficial scan of the competition. But it is encouraging that someone out west has finally realized the possibilities of online education. Welcome to the 21st century.
7. annko - July 23, 2009 at 09:18 am
Ten years ago I can recall sitting in a meeting with my university President discussing an initiitve to move curriculum online (curriculum, NOT a course) . There was much ambiguity regarding the revenue return as well as vast misunderstanding regarding the quality of the inputs - e.g. the production values associated with content production (correct, standing a camera up in the back of class won't do it). A third consideration, rarely discussed in detail, is support for moving content online and the assocated faciliation and course managment skills needed by faculty to effectively leverage digital tools. If one accepts the premise that faculty learn to teach as they were taught, it ought to raise the questions, how will they know how to teach online?
8. robmmoore - July 23, 2009 at 10:28 am
Effective, well-designed online education can be a key element in a diversified "portfolio" of opportunities for differing sectors of the populace. But faculty engagement and endorsement is a must. When the University of Illinois attempted to launch its Global Campus, faculty reluctance to participate made it nearly impossible for the initial public/private partnership model to succeed.
9. jendesign - July 23, 2009 at 11:00 am
I never hear this mentioned in discussions of online instruction in higher education, but there is a whole discipline centered around the design of online instruction...instructional design and educational technology. Within this academic discipline, researchers and practitioners have developed best practices and ways to ensure quality in online instruction. AERA is one of the venues for this type of research. What I would suggest to Dean Edley is that he look at hiring instuctional designers who have been trained to help faculty and others design quality online courses. Not every good in-person instructor is going to be a good online instructor. You also can't just convert your print materials to online format, put them up, and call it an online course. Online instruction is an entirely different beast and requires intentional design. I think that is why some online courses fail...they are not designed well or at all. ID professionals can help faculty design objectives, excercises, relevant multimedia, assessments, etc. that are in alignment and are effective.
10. ndaly - July 23, 2009 at 11:52 am
The instructor is not the only person in the classroom. The students get what they give out of any program, whether in a traditional classroom or online. An online student for nearly four years, I strongly believe in putting into the coursework everything you can in order to learn as much as possible. The point is to become educated. This is not a passive process. So for those who believe online education is a lesser form, perhaps you might try a course online. Such an education requires dedication, commitment, diligence, research, classroom discussion, teamwork, and intensive writing and other projects that hone skills and develop the intellect... very much like traditional classroom work - when and if the student gets engaged in the process.
11. dowlohnes - July 23, 2009 at 11:58 am
Good online instruction can be very good. (Conversely, we have all suffered really bad classroom instruction.) The US Department of Education has just published a meta-study -- Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies -- U.S. Department of Education -- that suggests that not only is online learning comparable in outcomes the f2f but arguably superior -- and "hybrid/blended" learning, combining some f2f with online, is better that online alone. There has been a great deal of lot of huffing and puffing on this topic -- in all directions. A little hard research is refreshing. www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf Mike Goldstein, Practice Leader Higher Education Group, Dow Lohnes
12. 11280282 - July 23, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Perhaps the good dean should review the past history of California's efforts to initiate a virtual university that, in fact, included the Univrsity of California. Such efforts were met with a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of money, and certainly with a lack of Legislative and State leadership support (in California that concept seems to be an ongoing oxymoron). On the other hand, if the dean has a new idea perhaps he can single handidly make it come to fruition by having all of the law schools come together and finance the initiative with non-state money.
13. ksnyder10 - July 23, 2009 at 01:13 pm
I am both an educator and administrator in higher education and have been involved with online learning initiatives for more than a decade. A significant amount of research has been conducted to determine how to provide quality educaiton in an online environment. The research has resulted in design guidelines and data showing students can do as well as and sometimes better in an online program. Of course this does not mean the online learning environment is suitable for all teachers, all students, and all subjects. Careful planning and decision making will determine the success of this effort. I applaud Dean Edley for his innovative thinking and wish him well in his endeavor.
14. dowlohnes - July 23, 2009 at 01:27 pm
At a time when most of higher education is faced with rising enrollment and reduced revenues, isn't there an imperative to examine all options for making the best quality learning available to the most people at the lowest cost? Past efforts are just that: I suspect the circumstances facing the UC system and the rest of California higher education are sufficiently without precedent that Dean Edley's thoughts will receive far more serious consideration than might have been the case a while ago.
15. michaelmahoney - July 23, 2009 at 02:26 pm
California State University East Bay (CSUEB) has had a strategic organization called the "CSUEB Online Campus" for 2 years. We have been very successful and about 12% of our entire enrollment was (fully) online in 2008-09 (the 23-campus CSU system is only about 2%). CSUEB will have 9 fully online degree completion (upper division/MS) programs for matriculated students as of Fall 2009. One major reason for our success is the involvement/control of regular tenure/tenure-track faculty in every stage of the online program process including creation, administration, teaching and assessment of the programs and related courses. Another major reason for our success is the support from all areas of the university and our on-campus Online Campus organization (headed by the Provost). For more information, check out http://www20.csueastbay.edu/online/ Online programs won't "save" the CSU or the UC, but they certainly provide better access for students and in our case, high quality. Thanks for reading. Mike Mahoney, CSUEB Provost mike.mahoney@csueastbay.edu
16. eric_gates - July 23, 2009 at 03:17 pm
Dear Detyractors, A big pisture for you to put these changes in some historical perspective (there are literally hundreds more examples of this, but here are just a few): The Luddites fought the loom. The Horse people fought Henry Ford. RCA Tubes fought Sony Transistors. Minicomputers fought the microcomputer. Newspapers are fighting the web. Some people still think typewriters are better than word processors. This is a no brainer.
17. renprof - July 23, 2009 at 04:25 pm
I teach an online Intro to Shakespeare class. It is about as good as an online Shakespeare class is going to get. That said, I don't think Edley should opine about this until he has taught an online class himself. It doesn't really save time or money. Teaching an online course takes more time and effort than a face to face one. It does save space, and provides access for commuter students who need a flexible schedule. There are some built-in problems, though. It's hard to build an online community. Some disciplines couldn't be taught at all: does anyone seriously think you could have any performing arts majors worth anything? Without that, any campus is deeply impoverished. And as others have pointed out, online courses need to be well-designed and thought out, which frankly, they rarely are. I would be for providing some centralized courses available to all students enrolled in a UC campus, but not an entire online campus.
18. lyndahar - July 23, 2009 at 05:48 pm
I see a theme underlying the article and many of the comments -- there is a tendency in higher education to equate content delivery to teaching. Dean Edley's comment about high production values for videos and the rest of his description of course quality suggest that he is thinking of building online courses as a simple upload of the traditional lecture. jendesign notes the importance of trained instructional designers in helping faculty build effective online courses. I also think it would be great if more attention was also given to instructional design in face-to-face classes (see Walvoord and Anderson's book). It is possible to save money by moving at least certain courses, especially those with high enrollments, online (see the web site of the National Center for Academic Transformation for models). The key is to disassociate the various roles that faculty play in instruction and find the pieces that can be assigned to less expensive players. Posting a set of videotaped lectures online, adding exams, and calling it a course overlooks many of the faculty contributions to student learning.
19. laupuslib - July 23, 2009 at 07:25 pm
There are obviously pros and cons to an online campus and moving curricula online. What I notice is that the Dean of the Law School is not suggesting moving the law school online. Is that just an oversight or does the dean suggest that this might work for undergrads but not his graduate students?
20. artcleve1 - July 23, 2009 at 07:30 pm
The idea that just adding courses online and maintaining a degree of excellence will bring in huge numbers of students and save money is unrealistic. With considerable experience in this venue, I want to p[oint out that even online courses require an instructor...and an instructor is limited in the number of students he/she can serve. As another person noted, it takes more of the instructor's time to prepare for an online course...and many tenured and tenure track professors will not take part if given a choice. As someone else pointed out, start-up (and continuing) resources are considerable... I doubt whether the Dean making this proposal has any experience in such an endeavour or he would think again of the ramifications of such a "new campus." ART
21. kevineberly - July 23, 2009 at 10:16 pm
AS many have pointed out real learing can taken place in both the on-line and tradtiaonl setting. The real issue is the students desires and faculty input. I raise the question of faculty leadership and the time faculty spend with students. Faculty who teach on-line or part time are rarely involved in any campus activites that demaonstrates leadership. If on-line classes work there must be a method to address and provide the leadership that is needed or institions will face even greater challenges.
22. a4l8l1i8e9 - July 23, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Such proposals for online undergraduate education seem to equate a residential university education with classes and curriculum. An undergraduate spends about 14% of her waking hours during an academic year in a classroom. The time spent outside the classroom is hugely formative, and while much of this time is shaped indirectly by the work assigned in class, much of it is also shaped by the broader campus community. These broader interactions with other bright young people, also engaged in academic pursuits, are often not focused on a class. They may be in student organizations, in community service, in chats with a staff or faculty mentor, or in bull-sessions with other students. These are key elements of a residential university education. That these are tremendously influential for students in clear, both from studies of student experiences, and from graduates' tendency to recall these out-of-class events in more detail and with greater passion than most classes. Discussions of online undergraduate education pay too little attention to these non-curricular elements of education.
23. annabucy - July 28, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Online education offers students the opportunity to have the best faculty in the world, regardless of where they reside. It also offers students (and faculty) the chance to have people in their classrooms that are all over the world. I have been teaching online for more than 5 years and am finishing my doctorate online through University of Phoenix. As a student, I have had the chance to be in class with people who are in Abu Dhabi, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, and nearly all the 50 states. When talking about diversity, online education offers a type of diversity unachieveable in traditional classrooms. It is one thing to be in a classroom with people from other places, and a whole different thing to be in a classroom with people who are still in those other places--brings the validity of the curriculum to a whole different level. Also, as our economy forces everyone to work as many hours as humanly possible, no time is left for people to take to attend a traditional classroom to improve their knowledge. Online may not be the place for law or medical school, but text-based courses are ideal. Online education also forces all students to participate, which does not usually happen in a face-to-face environment.