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UI-OnLine: The Realization of the 21st Century Land-Grant University

by Sloan-C

I. WHAT IS THE UI-ONLINE?

The University of Illinois has for decades delivered off-campus instruction through various media, from postal correspondence courses to videotape, television, two-way video, and satellite. The UI-OnLine will expand these efforts with a focus on computer-based communication via the Internet. As the UI-OnLine experiments with interactive, at-distance offerings of public-service information, short courses, regular courses, certificate programs and degree programs, it will simultaneously support computer-based enhancement of traditional, on-campus instruction.

The UI-OnLine will be grounded firmly in the academic programs of the three campuses of the University of Illinois (Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign), managed by the same faculty and assured as to quality through the same processes.

Its off-campus students will occasionally be the same students who are enrolled on the campuses, but a new, underserved population will be drawn from Illinois citizens constrained by work, family, or other limitations that prevent direct access to a campus. The UI-OnLine will be the twenty-first-century realization of the University's historical land-grant mission.

II. WHY CREATE A UI-ONLINE?

The advent of broad access to the Internet has created a new medium for education, in effect a space into which the University of Illinois may or may not move, but others surely will. It is unlikely that the University will survive in the twenty-first century if it does not utilize these rapidly developing networked information technologies.

The UI-OnLine will:

• reach place-bound students through a medium of unprecedented capacity and versatility;
• provide opportunities for students unable to meet the scheduling requirements of real-time classes;
• provide new and extended forms for public service;
• function symbiotically with the instructional efforts of the campuses, drawing from them but also feeding back to them advances in the technological enhancement of learning;
• sustain the University of Illinois' educational leadership nationally and internationally.

The University of Illinois is historically positioned for a pioneering venture in this direction, from the development of the Illiac, Plato, Mosaic, Eudora, and Telnet, to the ongoing contributions of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Sloan Center for Asynchronous Learning Environments (SCALE) on the Urbana campus and the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) on the Chicago campus. In recent years, the University has initiated the use of advanced technology within both its regular curriculum and its continuing education services. In creating the UI-OnLine, the University will add coherence to these efforts and will focus resources on their expansion.

III. WHAT IS THE STRUCTURE OF THE UI-ONLINE?

The UI-OnLine will be:

• an umbrella organization within the University of Illinois encompassing courses, degree programs, outreach and public service conducted largely or wholly through the Internet;
• a catalogue of all UI education and public service activity conducted largely or wholly through the Internet;
• an outreach mechanism to identify and cultivate general and specialty markets for Internet-based education and public service;
• a university-wide source of support for the development of Internet-based programs, from course and program development through assessment and evaluation;
• a university-level provider of some support services for Internet-based distance education programs.

It is not anticipated that the development of new programs will be a focus of the UI-OnLine. Programs of the UI-OnLine will be created and managed by the campus departments and colleges and any new programs will be reviewed through the normal campus approval process. Developers of programs with UI-OnLine support will pay special attention to quality and development will proceed at a measured pace.

A steering group of ten plus three people from the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs will serve as the core for planning the UI-OnLine. Once in operation, a minimal administrative staff for the UI-OnLine will attend to:

• intercampus coordination
• public relations, information and outreach
• course development support
• research and evaluation
• technology support
• student services support

The ultimate vehicle for student access to the UI-OnLine is the networked personal computer at home or at the office. For a transitional period, however, the UI-OnLine will also use local sites to provide computer and network access. These sites may include community college campuses, Cooperative Extension sites, corporate meeting rooms and local libraries, among others.

IV. SUPPORT FOR PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

A "UI-OnLine Institute" will:

• maintain a demonstration site on the web of courseware tools available to UI faculty, with both commercial packages and UI-faculty-developed applications
• provide conferences and workshops to assist faculty in developing on-line courses or course supplements
• provide grant funds to faculty, departments and colleges for program development
• assist intercampus initiatives in program development
• support research on the effectiveness of on-line instruction
• assist in the evaluation of UI-OnLine programs and initiatives
• oversee university-level attention to issues concerning faculty such as ownership of courseware, workload, and recognition.

V. STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES

UI-OnLine will broker enrollment services (registration, financial aid, transcript) for all programs in the UI-OnLine catalogue. Depending on the program and the student, UI-OnLine will:

• refer the student to on-campus services, or
• refer the student to the campus extramural programs services, or
• provide the services to the student.

UI-OnLine will monitor all three pathways for enrollment to ensure a service- and student-oriented process.

• UI-OnLine will maintain a student technical helpline (800 number) for UI-OnLine programs that request it.
• UI-OnLine will provide connection to the Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization (ILCSO) and through it to interlibrary loan services for UI-OnLine programs.

VI. UI-ONLINE AND THE CAMPUSES: HARDWARE AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

UI-OnLine will not purchase or maintain hardware nor will it provide direct technical support (vs. workshops, etc.) to faculty or departments. It will provide, within its grants to faculty, departments and colleges, funds to permit those units to pay for servers, system administration and educational technology specialist support. Units may use these funds either to support their own facilities or to purchase services from campus-level facilities.

VII. SOME EXAMPLES (hypothetical and actual)

1. Small City, Illinois, is 150 miles from the nearest graduate program in engineering. The city has one major employer of engineers, which has identified 7 or 8 employees whom it would like to see earn master's degrees. The company would provide the equipment and the site for these employees to complete courses for a Master of Civil Engineering or Electrical Engineering through video attendance at lectures and world-wide-web-based asynchronous discussions with other students and interactions with faculty. The degrees might be offered jointly by the Colleges of Engineering at UIC and UIUC with assistance from UI-OnLine.
   
2. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UIUC offers one of the top five Master of Library Science (MLS) degrees in the nation and the only accredited MLS degree at a public university in Illinois. There is growing demand for this degree from people who cannot take the time to relocate or commute to Urbana-Champaign. The degree is currently available at a distance for students who can obtain an Internet connection on their own or through their employment, and requires only a few weeks' residency on the UIUC campus. The program is managed by GSLIS at UIUC but would be included under the UI-OnLine umbrella.
   
3. The UIC College of Medicine provides an information and research dissemination service for health professionals offering emergency toxicology case studies and reviews of current articles.
   
4. StratSoy is an information, consultation and research dissemination service of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at UIUC, providing databases, advice, and answers to queries for soybean farmers. Both programs are operated entirely by the departments but would be recognized under the umbrella of the UI-OnLine.
   
5. A major federal installation in the Quad-Cities area, as well as several smaller agencies, is eager to have available to its staff coordinated opportunities for single courses, certificate programs and a full Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree. Under the leadership of the UIC program in Public Administration, with contributions from UIS and UIUC and assistance from the UI-OnLine, a program might be offered that is accessible through private Internet connection, agency-provided access, or the Quad-Cities Graduate Center, depending upon the needs and preferences of the student. Subsequently, the program might also become available through a site provided at a downstate community college.

These examples focus on continuing education and master's degree programs. This focus reflects the initial development of the UI-OnLine, in consequence of both existing projects and the expected early markets for such programs. Distance programs require self-motivated, highly purposive, sophisticated learners. Therefore they are most likely to succeed in professional master's and continuing education.

However, we have experienced considerable success with the NetMath program of the Department of Mathematics at UIUC, which is aimed at teaching university-level mathematics (calculus through differential equations) to high school students throughout the world. Moreover, an undergraduate course at UIS on using the Internet in education has attracted international enrollment. Overall, our previous experiences have shown us that we have the ability to develop successful course offerings to students at all levels.

Additional types of programs will develop. For instance, the institutions of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) are discussing an inter-institutional undergraduate major in Korean studies, something no single university has the resources to mount. How or even whether such an enterprise would be connected to the UI-OnLine is at present unclear, but the project illustrates another potential for collaborative programs unique to Internet capabilities.

Similarly, once the UI-OnLine is established, it is likely to enter into cooperative relationships with other Illinois institutions of higher education, creating the most effective use of Illinois' resources in meeting the expanding educational needs of its citizens.

VIII. CHALLENGES

• by several orders of magnitude, the development of pedagogically-sound content that can be delivered over the Internet is the major challenge for any would-be provider of network-based instruction
• incentives for faculty, departments and colleges
• copyright and ownership issues
• quality controls
• student services issues
• library support
• external (state) financial support, political support, IBHE support

IX. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Please contact Vice President for Academic Affairs Sylvia Manning (manning2@uillinois.edu) or Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Burks Oakley II (oakley@uillinois.edu)