10/13/2014
In his Oct. 2 State of the University Address, Chancellor Harvey Perlman made a point to address the future of University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s online classes.
Perlman announced that two UNL administrators will co-chair a dean’s council focused on attracting new distance learning opportunities to UNL.
The university already has an acclaimed graduate online education program, ranked sixth nationwide among online graduate business programs, and ranks 11th out of 300 in graduate distance education programs, according to U.S. News and World Report’s most recent rankings.
But administrators want to place more emphasis on online programs.
Marjorie Kostelnik, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences, and Brad Sheriff, the assistant vice-chancellor for Academic Affairs, will co-chair the council.
“We need to expand these programs, both for the revenue they provide as well as the diversity of new students they connect to our campus,” Perlman said.
Kostelnik said the faculty who run online classes are a major part of what has made them successful.
“It’s like any kind of education,” she said. “You need a great teacher, and you need somebody who knows a lot about how to present information and how to structure great classes. And we’re lucky because we’ve got a lot of great teachers.”
Students take online classes for a variety of reasons. Those physically unable to receive instruction on campus are given the option to take online classes through UNL. The courses are very specialized and give students a chance to interact with students from all around the country or on different continents.
“The student body can be incredibly diverse,” Kostelnik said, “probably more diverse that what we might be able to produce on campus.”
Most courses offered are at the masters or doctorate level, and involve online instruction, including emails, video conferencing and Blackboard. Some courses also place students in the field.
A good online course isn’t just one where students read a lot of material from a computer, Kostelnik said.
“A really good online course is a course that’s interactive,” she said.
Currently, UNL offers online courses providing a master’s degree in the following areas of study: family consumer science education, youth development, financial planning, P-12 education administration, special education, deaf and hard of hearing, German education and international family studies. The university offers a doctorate degree in higher education administration and a hybrid course (which uses both online and on campus classes) in quilt studies.
Distance learning tends to draw in a lot of students in the military, in addition to many transfer students, administrators said.
Kostelnik and Sheriff said they’re hoping to improve and expand the online program for distance students in the future.
“We’re looking at what additional programs we can apply,” Kostelnik said.
But they’re also making sure they’re able to add programs and keep classes affordable for students.
“We’re finding out what are the incentives… how can you put that together in a way that provides the financial support that you need in order to design these programs,” Kostelnik said, “because they are expensive to design.”
The dean’s council aims to expand the role of online learning at UNL.
“We’re ready to take a look, and we’re trying to see what’s the next level in thinking about distance education in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and how do we want to structure these programs in the future,” Kostelnik said.
By Bailey Schulz