Small and Unique – A Small School Virtual Summit

Synergies of Collaboration

Ray Schroeder

UIS AVC for Online ~ UPCEA Senior Fellow

https://sites.google.com/view/higheredcontext/home

First: A word about presentation format. For the past dozen years, we have been "power-point-less" at the UIS Center for Online Learning, Research and Service. Rather than using a static, aging format, we prefer to create Web pages for our presentations to assure that they are easily accessible, updatable, and always available. Please follow along on your own device (or visit at a later date) to delve more deeply into the links and videos that interest you.

Setting Context



Just Published:


Do you remember these ... Where have they gone?

(Is the small/medium college campus next?)

Higher education resisted the digital disruption of the web for a long time. We were able to use it for our benefit without major erosion of base. Inevitably, it has caught up with us; preceding us were such information, social and service-centric areas as:



And, whatever happened to that local college?


Unity College considers closing campus entirely https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/01/26/small-maine-college-asks-do-we-need-a-main-campus.aspx


Local colleges - Hundreds of small/medium size colleges are lost to the ages - lost to the economy and cyber delivery competition - this list is updated regularly with new closures and mergers https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/


College Mergers - For example, Pennsylvania state colleges in the PASSHE system are preparing to merge https://www.inquirer.com/education/state-system-universities-merger-integrationsports-20210204.html

Recession Reality in Higher Education

I have published, for the past dozen years, a chronicle of the impact of societal changes in higher education. This daily chronicle now has more than 12,000 entries. Note that many in our field regularly view this blog to see how peer institutions are affected:

https://recessionreality.blogspot.com/

Interinstitutional Online Course Sharing

A series of events has converged to put new impetus behind sharing courses online. The COVID-19 pandemic, rapid deployment of remote learning, growth of MOOCs and mounting financial pressure on colleges and universities have combined to open minds on this topic. I authored a column on the topic:

Interinstitutional Sharing of Courses Online
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/inter-institutional-sharing-courses-online

Common Course Sharing Synergies

  1. Better resource utilization: A college is able to fully utlize existing faculty members to continue a degree or certificate program that would otherwise not be possible without sharing of faculty and associated resources across institutions. There are many examples of foreign language programs that are continuing today because colleges cobbled together agreements to share classes with the fewer remaining faculty members.

  2. New revenue generation: Expanded enrollments at participating institutions are possible by sharing a new certificate or degree program with other institutions. Among the highest demand areas today are for Blockchain development courses; AI programming and applications certificates; Cloud and distributed computing: UI/UX design; and many others including soft skills such as group leadership; oral and written communication in business; and business ethics. A good place to begin exploring these possibilities is : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/linkedin-online-elearning-skills-jobs-hiring/

  3. Diversity in faculty: Inviting institutions and faculty can expand the diversity of your faculty memgers who are teaching your students.

  4. Diversity in knowledge/perspective: Cross-cultural understandings by assigning students to mixed group projects, such as the UIS/CSU example below. These can grow into perspectives that expand the vision of students and faculty members.

  5. Building diverse networks for students: In sharing online classes, students will build lifelong relationships with other students and faculty from different locations and backgrounds. It will expand their career and lifelong learning networks.

  6. Triggering innovtive instructional design: The collaborations will reach into designing shared classes, bringing new approaches to sharing presentations, materials and student/faculty collaborations.

  7. Engaging your faculty members: In building solutions to the enrollment and revenue challenges, faculty become engaged in leading and taking ownership of college-wide challenges. Do not underestimate the value of this practice - faculty become more sensitive to costs and opportunities; they become more invested in recruitment, retention and institution building.

Course Sharing Synergies - a personal example

In 2004 to 2006, Chicago State University and UIS collaborated on a state of Illinois Higher Education Cooperation Act grant to merge classes between the two institutions using a shared classroom Blackboard platform. The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a small/mid sized rural university - Chicago State University (CSU) is a small/mid sized urban university. I joined CSU Professor Julian Sceinbucks in coordinating the grants in which eight to ten pairs of faculty members - one from each institution - shared their classes online.

  • The students intermingled in the Blackboard space, conducted group projects, and received grades and credit at their home institution

  • Faculty members developed a common syllabus, drawing on the strengths of each of their individual syllabi.

  • In many cases, the faculty members alternated weeks of supervising the sessions - although most were not lockstep scheduling.

  • The students from each institution were graded by their home institution faculty member

The synergies were significant.

  1. Students gained a cultural perspective from the other institution's students and faculty in every class.

  2. Rural students came to better understand urban students and their priorities and vice versa. Some built lifelong relationships and shared networks.

    1. Education students were particularly affected as they engaged in group projects that explored differences between rural Illinois and Chicago city public school policies, resources, challenges and approaches to problem-solving. This understanding continues to play out as those engaged in the project move to teaching and principalship positions across the state.

  3. Faculty members learned at multiple levels from their collaborators. These included pedagogies, content perspectives, social perspectives, and career perspectives. In doing so, they built lasting relationships as colleagues.

  4. Faculty members from each insitution contributed to diversity and a broadening of perspectives at the collaborating university.

  5. We broke down the barriers of understanding between rural and urban lives.

Though cost-savings were not a priority in this grant-funded project, several smaller classes were allowed to be offered because of the unique benefits that would not otherwise have been afforded at each institution.

Some Consortial Examples

COPLAC - Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges - Shared Online Courses -http://coplac.org/shared-online-courses/

Great Plains IDEA - a grandfather of interinstitutional collaboration

Acadeum - formerly College Consortium

Council of Independent Colleges Online Course Sharing Consortium

Seven of the Big Ten universities have created the Big Ten Academic Alliance Online Course Sharing Program

Some Colleges and Their Experiences

Ohio Department of Higher Ed - a "how to" guide

Section 3333.90 of the Ohio Revised Code requires the Department of Higher Education (DHE) to establish a course and program sharing network that allows Ohio’s public colleges and universities and adult career centers to share curricula for existing courses and academic programs with one another.... There are a number of tools and examples used in an effort to be successful in sharing courses and programs. The following are real-life program sharing tools and resources that Ohio’s campuses are using to implement this practice.

Guide and links to actual documents currently in use such as:

MOUs, Consortium Financial Aid Agreements, Curriculum Sheets, Handbooks, Miscellaneous tools and resources, FERPA Forms, etc.

https://www.ohiohighered.org/institutional-collaboration

How can you keep up with the daily developments and trends?

Ray's Daily Curated Reading Lists and Social Media. Blogs with daily updates on the field of online / continuing learning in higher education are read by tens of thousands in our field every week.

Contact Ray

rschr1@uis.edu ~ rayschroeder@gmail.com - ray@upcea.edu

@rayschroeder

Associate Vice Chancellor for Online, Professor Emeritus

University of Illinois Springfield

Senior Fellow, University Professional and Continuing Education Assn.

https://rayschroeder.com

217-206-7531