Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Frugal Innovation: Colleges Share Courses?

Politically tolerable? Logistically feasible? Financially viable? Educationally desirable?
Sharing Courses with Other Colleges? Really? Where?

I'm looking for examples where a few colleges or universities each benefit from collaborating to enable their own enrolled undergraduates to take some of each others' courses.  Know of any?   Meanwhile...


  • Have budgetary and workload pressures increased enough to make this kind of collaboration politically tolerable?
  • Have telecommunications options and student experience with online courses increased enough to make this kind of collaboration logistically feasible?
  • Have expectations about roles for faculty and students (and student/faculty ratios) changed enough to make staffing options for this kind of collaboration financially viable? 
  • Have educational uses of technology and strategies for teaching and learning in online and hybrid courses improved enough to make this kind of collaboration educationally desirable?
I'm beginning to so.  Which leads me to ask:  
What could be done by each institution in this kind of collaboration to encourage and enable its own students to BENEFIT from taking courses in which the lead faculty member is based on a distant campus - too distant for face-to-face meetings?  
IMAGE
Photo of "mobile camel-solar-powered refrigerator" from "Introduction to Naps Systems Group" http://www.napssystems.com/ Page 26 "Camel Fridge TM , power pack + vaccine fridge on a camel" in Website Document PDF:
http://www.tekes.fi/fi/gateway/PTARGS_0_201_403_994_2095_43/http%3B/tekes-ali1%3B7087/publishedcontent/publish/programmes/groove/documents/seminaariaineistot/aurinkoenergia_28_4_2011/naps.pdf


3 comments:

  1. This is a great topic and one that I am very interested in hearing different perspectives on. I am trying to organize a similar venture and would like to hear some of the challenges that may be ahead of us and just different ideas, etc. I definitely think it is a great way for small schools to generate creative synergies to the student's benefit. Such collaborative efforts would certainly enhance or even supplement current course offerings and reach a greater number of students. However, I am sure there are challenges to such collaborative arrangements.

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  2. Anonymous11:30 AM

    Christy, thanks for the affirmation - We'll be doing a session on this topic on Friday Sept 16 at 2pm EDT. We'd love to have you join us - it's free. http://tlt.gs/frlvreg to register. Frugal Innovation: Colleges Sharing Courses Online

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  3. I too find this an interesting topic. ACA schools attempted this several years ago and it lasted for just a short time. I do remember that it did involve all involved to agree that no tuition would need to be exchanged.
    Jeff

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What do you think?