Online Education Initiative

Response to Final Report from the Provost:

Dear Online Education Task Force Members:

The University of Connecticut must become a leader in high-quality online learning in order to meet the needs of constantly changing student bodies that range from traditional-aged residential students to part-time returning adult students. I am most appreciative of the seriousness, diligence, creativity, and sheer hard work that the Online Education Task Force contributed in the past six months and that have resulted in this substantive report.

I accept with pleasure the recommendations of the Online Education Task Force and am taking these steps to implement their recommendations.

• I will take Recommendation One to the University Senate Executive Committee so that they may discuss how best to establish university-wide quality standards for online education at the University of Connecticut. UConn’s reputation is at stake in terms of the quality of our online offerings to our own students and to students who will participate in our courses from all over the world.
  
• I have charged Vice Provost Veronica Makowsky, Associate Vice Provost Keith Barker, and Chief Instructional Designer Desmond McCaffrey with implementing Goals IIa and IIb (Providing Faculty and Student Support for Online Education) through the Institute for Teaching and Learning. Vice Provost Makowsky will report to me about the needs and progress of ITL in this endeavor.
  
• I have charged Professors Doug Cooper and Andy Rosman with assembling a small working group which will present to me a business plan for developing online education and with suggestions for that plan's implementation.

We will begin immediately by identifying the 25 or 30 highest enrollment and/or highest demand courses at UConn, with the expectation that providing such courses online during the summer and inter-sessions would help students finish in four and increase revenue. We can provide faculty, identified and encouraged by their deans and department heads, with financial incentives and instructional design assistance from ITL to start planning these online courses in the fall in order to offer at least some of these courses in the May or summer term of 2010.

The theme of UConn’s Academic Plan is “Our World, Our People, Our Future.” The Online Education Task Force Report creatively delineates one way in which UConn will boldly and innovatively confront the future of our people in a quickly changing world.  Please join me in thanking the members of the Task Force for this timely and excellent report.

Sincerely,

Peter J. Nicholls
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs