UC BERKELEY ONLINE EDUCATION PRE‐READING DOCUMENT | COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ADVISORY BOARD | UC BERKELEY Working discussion document, as of 4-4-13 OVERVIEW & BACKGROUND: Online education uses electronic technology such as text, audio, images, animation and video to support and enhance learning and teaching. This can occur inside or outside of the classroom. Activities can range from course web sites to laptop programs used in class to online lectures and online degree programs. UC Berkeley has successfully used online education since 1995. Different forms of online learning take place in UC Extension, Summer Sessions, and undergraduate and graduate courses at Berkeley. In 2012, the School of Public Health began offering UC Berkeley’s first online master’s degree via a seven‐semester program which requires 15 days on campus. Other online degrees, through the College of Engineering and School of Information will be introduced in the next two years. MOOCs (massive open online courses) are the newest element of campus online education. These free courses, not yet available for UC credit, enhance the academic experience for students on campus and give many thousands of people worldwide a free UC Berkeley learning experience. The Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE) was launched by the campus leadership in 2012 to advise, coordinate and facilitate all campus online education activities. We recognize that online education is “not one thing” and that individual faculty and department initiatives should be supported in their pursuit of innovation, experimentation, and learning. Berkeley’s Steering Committee for Online Education (SCOE) was also formed in 2012 and charged with overseeing campus online education initiatives and accelerating implementation. The Steering Committee provides overall direction to the campus, makes decisions concerning strategic priorities and allocates additional resources to help realize these priorities. It is anticipated that most of the online innovation will occur at the school/unit level; therefore, the purpose of the Steering Committee is to provide campus‐level guidance and coordination, and to enable innovation. PRINCIPLES: The Steering Committee is comprised of the Provost, the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, the Chair of the Academic Senate, the Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, Academic Planning and Facilities, the Chief Information Officer, and several Deans. In 2012, the Steering Committee set the principles listed below for UC Berkeley’s online education strategy. The principles are meant to provide guidance and to ensure that campus goals are met, specifically ensuring that our online education efforts align with Berkeley’s mission, values, and operational requirements. These are noted below (excerpted): 1. A commitment to access and excellence. The scale and pacing of our online initiatives must be driven by our ability to thoughtfully extend our community in ways that protect and advance the reputation of Berkeley, deepen the critical relationship between our faculty and students, Pre‐Reading Discussion Document − April 2013 College of Engineering Advisory Board, UC Berkeley Page 1 of 5 Confidential enhance the perceived quality and uniqueness of the on‐campus student experience, and grow the value of our intellectual property. 2. A focus on improving teaching quality. We believe that the new technologies and social media create important opportunities for us to offer richer educational experiences and to continually assess and improve our teaching. Online education will provide us with the opportunity to think in new ways about the learning environment and the student experience, and allow for rich cross‐
department, cross‐discipline discussions. 3. The opportunity to generate revenue and other types of return on investment. Online education offers a promising opportunity to generate new revenue, improve long‐term financial sustainability, and ensure that we can continue to deliver on our mission of access and excellence across everything we do, including our on‐campus programs and research. 4. Learning through experimentation. Online education is in its infancy. It will be years before different approaches, technologies, and offerings mature and are either refined or rejected. We need to plan for experimentation, learn from our experiments, and regularly and systematically share our learning. APPROACH: Our approach to enacting online programs will adhere to an approach that has served Berkeley well in other initiatives. This is characterized by: • A “federated and jointly‐enabled” model that places design and implementation responsibility with Schools and Colleges. • Focus on four types of online education: (depicted below). Pre‐Reading Discussion Document − April 2013 College of Engineering Advisory Board, UC Berkeley Page 2 of 5 Confidential APPROACH: (continued) • High, campus‐wide standards for student admission, instructor selection, academic content, and student performance. • Faculty and graduate student support. • Campus‐level support and guidance. • Integration. • Shared learning and resources. CAMPUS‐WIDE CENTER & LEADERSHIP: The Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE) was established in 2012 to support the campus’ range of online activities. Professor Armando Fox was appointed the Academic Director joining BRCOE Executive Director Diana Wu, who is providing administrative leadership to Berkeley`s online education efforts. Inna Lisker also has recently joined BRCOE as Associate Director. Under the guidance of the Online Education Steering Committee, BRCOE is focusing its efforts on building an infrastructure that will support the campus` many online education initiatives including research agendas. In creating BRCOE, the campus made a commitment to developing on‐campus resources and capacity for online learning activities ranging from open‐access MOOCs to high‐end graduate degree programs. In support of open access courses, UC Berkeley has joined edX, a not‐for‐profit, $60 million online learning initiative founded by Harvard University and MIT and launched in May 2012. Six courses offered on edX this school year are UC Berkeley courses, and the campus will collaborate with edX to expand the number of universities that offer their courses on the edX platform. UC Berkeley also will serve as the inaugural chair of the to‐be‐formed “X University” Consortium. In addition to edX courses, BRCOE will also support school and unit’s interest in developing individual courses, certificate programs and graduate degrees by assisting in the identification of needs and solutions for every step in the online education delivery chain. BRCOE will work closely and collaboratively with academic and administrative units across the campus to address questions relating to scope and scale, students and student experience, instructional delivery, shared tools and resources, and partnering. The goal of Berkeley’s online education strategy is to support every faculty, student, and unit’s aspirations and success. Attachment: Key Facts and Figures: Online Education at UC Berkeley Pre‐Reading Discussion Document − April 2013 College of Engineering Advisory Board, UC Berkeley Page 3 of 5 Confidential KEY FACTS AND FIGURES: ONLINE EDUCATION AT UC BERKELEY (as of April 2013) 1. COST For students enrolled at UC Berkeley, including in Summer Sessions, tuition for online courses, and for “blended” courses with both traditional and online components, is generally the same as it is for purely traditional courses. The exception is online degree programs, which will cost more than traditional degrees. At UC Extension, students pay different course fees. MOOCs (massive open online courses) currently are free. Some MOOCs award certificates of completion, and students are not charged for them. When a MOOC requires a proctored exam, there is a small fee if the exam is taken in person. 2. STUDENTS • Nearly 1,200 UC Berkeley undergraduate and 125 graduate students choose to take online courses – as opposed to traditional courses or blended courses that include some online activities – for academic credit, citing flexibility and convenience. • More than 11,000 additional students, most of them seeking access to top professional and enrichment courses from locations where these opportunities are not available locally, enroll in online UC Extension certificate programs. • The free UC Berkeley MOOCs are taken by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. One new MOOC, a statistics class, already has attracted more than 40,000 students. 3. INSTRUCTORS • The majority of UC Berkeley instructors use at least some small components of online education in their courses, from online class discussion forums to recorded lectures available when the learner is ready. • While Extension and Summer Sessions instructors are paid a small fee to develop online courses, there is no dedicated funding for instructors developing and implementing MOOCs. They often contribute their own time and resources and seek online grants. • Online curricula for courses taken for credit are subject to the same standards and review by the Academic Senate as traditional courses. MOOCs may be subjects to review by a separate faculty advisory board formed to review online education efforts at UC Berkeley 4. ONLINE COURSES • Nearly 30 undergraduate online courses are offered for credit, from Arabic to chemistry to psychology. • UC Berkeley currently has one online degree program, the On‐Campus/Online Professional Master of Public Health Degree. In spring 2014, there will another – an online Master of Advanced Study in Integrated Circuits, offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in the College of Engineering. • Six UC Berkeley MOOCs, not available for UC credit at this time, are offered this school year. • Summer Sessions currently offers eight courses that also are available solely online, except for a proctored final exam. • UC Extension has 143 online courses. Pre‐Reading Discussion Document − April 2013 College of Engineering Advisory Board, UC Berkeley Page 4 of 5 Confidential 5. MOOCs (massive open online courses) • In summer 2012, UC Berkeley joined Harvard University and MIT in a not‐for‐profit partnership with edX, an organization with an open‐source technology platform to deliver free online courses. Currently, edX offers six UC Berkeley MOOCs. • The campus and edX are committed to education quality, open platforms, open course materials and student learning data. • MOOCs already are helping to improve the experience of on‐campus students through features that increase their engagement with materials. These include brief assessment and exercises components that alternate with lectures during class, and different recorded video formats that allow students to review material after class. • MOOCs fit UC Berkeley’s public service mission, imparting a high quality learning experience to people unable to attend a top‐tier institution in person. • It is too early to tell what MOOC techniques will most benefit UC Berkeley’s mission and students, so campus leadership encourages experimentation with this new medium. • Developing MOOCs consumes hundreds of hours of instructor time. It takes about 2‐4 hours per hour of existing lecture material to adapt to the MOOC structure. 6. CONTACTS Armando Fox, academic director of the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education: fox@cs.berkeley.edu Diana Wu, executive director of the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education: dwu@unex.berkeley.edu Inna Lisker, associate director of the Berkeley Research Center for Online Education: ilisker@berkeley.edu Pre‐Reading Discussion Document − April 2013 College of Engineering Advisory Board, UC Berkeley Page 5 of 5 Confidential