US: California's online pilot project: brave new world?

Embracing the future at the University of California will undoubtedly bring new challenges when it evaluates the results of a recent decision to develop expanded online undergraduate and distance learning course offerings.

Will they stand up to the system's high standards? And, if so, will their implementation help to bridge the escalating budgetary funding gap?

The decision to invest between $5 and $6 million in the online pilot project was made in response to recommendations in March by the UC Commission on the Future. Co-chaired by President Mark G Yudof, the commission was asked last year to find ways to maintain the university system's elite reputation in the context of California's financial crisis.

The benefits are clear: an extended online undergraduate curriculum has the capacity to significantly increase enrolments of students attracted to the UC brand. This accompanied by lowered educational delivery costs could ensure the cash-strapped university system survives and is able to maintain its world-class reputation.

But the deep budgetary cuts over the past several years that have strained relations between administration and faculty to the breaking point mean the initiative has met with mixed responses across the 10-campus system.

Support that does exist comes from those who would like to see UC at the vanguard among its research-institution peers in offering a more comprehensive online educational curriculum.

"In the long run, [expanded online instruction] will happen at one of the great research universities," Yudof says. "It's just a question of when. I'd like to see UC play a leadership role."

Keith R Williams, chair of the university's committee on educational policy, points to its efficiency as a model, especially insofar as it theoretically can offer greater flexibility to faculty to engage in research and related activities.

There is nothing new about online education. Indeed, statistics suggest that 4.6 million American students took at least one online course in 2008.

The biggest concern for opponents to the UC plan is that successes associated with the online model have not been proven at similar research institutions. Although the system does already offer online courses to more than 25,000 students, few are undergraduate credit courses and most are graduate-level or related to extension courses.

The recent push to online education, however, is largely expedient. UC faces a $237 million budget-funding gap for 2010-11 that is projected to swell to $4.9 billion by the end of the decade if income is not significantly increased - or costs significantly reduced.

It is for this reason that online programming - in addition to a range of other measures such as increasing out-of-state enrolments - are being seriously pursued.

In July 2009, the commission was charged with developing a new vision for the university while maintaining the system's high standards and mitigating further damage caused by deep and sustained budgetary cuts.

The resulting report in March 2010 noted that some of the recommendations "would not be considered except for the severe fiscal crisis that UC faces". Among these was the "expeditious pursuit" of a pilot project to develop and deliver up to 40 online undergraduate courses.

By earlier this month, the plan involved creating online versions of the 25 "gateway courses"- such as first-year chemistry or statistics that typically have high enrolments per class. At UC alone these courses annually enrol more than 350,000 students.

Fully online curricula leading to associate's degrees will be offered in the first instance, but it is expected that bachelor's degrees will soon follow.

A mood of optimism prevails, as articulated in a letter of 5 April from Williams: "This is a chance for UC to do what it does best: use a research-based model to investigate the level and means that online education can contribute most effectively to instruction at UC."