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Friday, October 4, 2024

Not us

The NY Times carries an article focusing on CalTech's advertising of online programs (for money) that aren't in fact produced by CalTech.* But the same issue was also spotlighted by the state auditor in a report on UC: 

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From a June 6, 2024 analysis by the state auditor: Online courses and programs have become increasingly common in higher education. Many colleges work with third-party vendors known as online program managers (OPMs), which assist in the development and implementation of online programs. OPMs generally provide instruction and support services, such as marketing, recruiting, course development, and technology-related support. In this audit, we examined the University of California’s (UC) use of OPMs at five campuses—University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley); University of California, Davis (UC Davis); University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego); and University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara)—and drew the following conclusions:

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UC Uses OPMs to Teach Students in Some Nondegree Programs but Is Not Always Transparent About Doing So

We identified 51 UC contracts with OPMs that were in effect as of January 1, 2023, none of which involved undergraduate education. Of those contracts, 30 were with the five campuses we selected for further review, and 10 of those 30 related to graduate education. However, these 10 contracts involved support services rather than instruction. Of the 30 contracts we reviewed, 15 related to continuing education, which UC provides through extension units that are associated with campuses but that operate independently. Under the terms of these 15 contracts, OPMs were responsible for providing instruction. However, at the five UC campuses we selected to review, we found that the campuses provided potential students with incomplete or misleading information about the OPMs’ involvement in certain extension unit programs. Further, the recruitment materials for one or more programs at each campus may have misled potential students about the industry value of some UC cobranded programs offered in conjunction with OPMs... 

Full report at https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-106/.

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*https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/caltech-simplilearn-class-students.html.

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