The University of Colorado Boulder is beginning a year-long visioning process to consider how the campus might offer more online class options that could benefit students.
CU Boulder largely offers in-person classes. This spring, for example, there were 164,657 in-person or hybrid class enrollments compared to 14,397 online class enrollments on the main campus, according to Provost Ann Stevens. Each enrollment represents a student being registered for a class.
Many of CU Boulder’s online degree programs are at the graduate level, with undergraduate level programs largely offered in-person only. Now, the university is considering expanding online class offerings for undergraduates.
“There are a number of ways in our undergraduate offerings we need to think about how to expand and how that helps us meet student success goals to increase retention and graduation,” Stevens said during a University of Colorado Board of Regents committee meeting on Tuesday.
During the virtual regent committee meeting, Stevens presented an update on plans for online education at CU Boulder. She and a team of online education leaders on campus are looking to consider student demand and ways online classes can promote long-term student success. For instance, offering asynchronous online courses in the summer means a student has the flexibility to complete coursework at night after working an internship during the day. Online classes could also help students wanting to study abroad, Stevens said, by ensuring they remain on track to graduate within four years.
In some cases, Stevens said, online courses might offer more benefits than in-person classes.
“One thing that I learned back in my prior institution from COVID is sometimes, depending on the creativity of the professor, large lectures can be more interactive if they are moved thoughtfully online than if you just put 300 students in an auditorium,” she said.
She also wants to do more for students who have to leave campus due to family needs, personal health concerns or other reasons.
“I think we really, with some careful thought, can do more here, so that when a student leaves the campus or stops enrolling without completing a degree, we should be able to at least offer them a path or a way that, without physically coming back to campus, they may be able to try to complete that degree,” Stevens said.
Stevens and her visioning team are also considering streamlining administrative support for online classes. For example, the Division of Continuing Education helps students earn their degrees by offering more flexibility and resources, including online options. The Office of Academic and Learning Innovation, a unit of CU Boulder Online, develops new academic enterprises, including providing support for faculty as they develop online curriculum. Stevens said she wants to see if those two units can be more united.
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