A powerful California lawmaker wants public college students who are shut out of popular courses to attend low-cost online alternatives – including those offered by for-profit companies – and he plans to encourage the state’s public institutions to grant credit for those classes. The proposal expected today from Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat and president pro tem of the state Senate, aims to create a “statewide system of faculty-approved, online college courses,” according to a written statement from Steinberg’s office. (A spokesman for Steinberg declined to discuss the bill.)
Faculty would decide which courses should make the cut for a pool of online offerings. Likely participants include Udacity and Coursera, two major massive open online course providers, sources said. Another option might be StraighterLine, a low-cost, self-paced online course company...
Full story at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/13/california-bill-encourage-mooc-credit-public-colleges
I bet you're wondering why you didn't think of that!
And the good news never ends... Gov. Jerry Brown has shown an unusually keen interest in meetings of the University of California regents so far this year, stopping by to push his proposal for expanding online education. He'll be at it again today, dropping in to a meeting at the conference center on the University of California, San Francisco's Mission Bay campus...
Full story at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/03/am-alert-california-gov-jerry-brown-visits-regents-again.html
3 comments:
Not a lot of details on this proposal, but it appears to be a very big challenge to faculty control over curriculum as well as an obvious transfer of public money to private interests.
The Faculty Association should work with other faculty groups across campuses to develop a common response. Otherwise we'll be steamrolled.
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