University of California: Online Degrees Coming?

Interesting article about UC offering online degrees in the future:

In Crisis, U. of California Outlines a Grand and Controversial Online Learning Plan - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

 

"Online education is booming, but not at elite universities—at least not when it comes to courses for credit."

The definition of "elite" would have to be clarified but I believe that several Universities such as Penn State, Harvard, Texas, Tulane, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, etc. would be able to argue against the author.

I do hope that Cal decides to do it though. I feel that the more these larger uni's decide that online is a step forward the more this type of learning will be accepted by mainstream employers.

 

I noticed that too. I thought it was rather comedic that U of Cal is treading oh so cautiously into this with their pilot study to see if the whole online learning thing will actually work. Are these guys still stuck in the last century?

 

This article makes the University of California sound like they have little knowledge of today's on-line educational opportunities.

I assume Harvard, Columbia and Stanford are not elite universities

And many of the UC schools offer for credit courses on-line including Berkeley and Riverside. UCR offers an MFA that is predominantly on-line with some residencies required.

UC Berkeley has many on-line courses for credit.

 

I think the point of the article was that they are going to attempt to offer undergraduate, core courses. Something that a lot of "elite" schools currently don't offer, especially outside of their extension/continuing education divisions.

 

California is different than many states in how its higher-education system is set up. California has three kinds of public colleges, each with separate visions and purposes.

The University of California was conceived as the most selective system and most of its students attend full-time. It dominates research and virtually monopolizes doctoral programs among the state schools. UC is where the California professoriate replenishes itself and its graduate ranks are filled with young academic careerists. UC doesn't offer a lot of job-related masters degrees and many of its graduate programs only admit students with doctoral goals.

I think that UC's resistance to DL is motivated largely by their perception that DL doesn't provide a suitably intense educational experience and by the idea that DL study is most appropriate for and attractive to part-time vocational students. UC thinks that DL is a better fit for the CSU's, which are less overtly scholarly and offer more night-school type classes to working adults.

There are already a few UC DL degree programs, like that criminal justice thing out of UC Irvine.

I think that if UC does starts offering a greater number of DL degrees, that these programs will probably resemble the engineering masters degrees that Stanford currently offers. UC will work to ensure that their new DL programs continue to be as selective as their existing on-campus programs and they will probably favor students who are employed by particular employers.

The big consideration for UC is that they don't cheapen their brand.