DISTANCE LEARNING (a.k.a.
REMOTE COLLABORATION) at Union College
Status, February 8, 2001
Prepared by Doug Klein for Department Chairs and the Board
of Trustees.
In June, 1999, President Hull
expressed concern that the College should carefully monitor the growing field of
distance education, watching for both threats and opportunities.
He further expressed the desire for the College to find a way to “get
its feet wet” in distance education so that we would be in position to quickly
recognize threats and take advantage of opportunities.
1. We have responded by
developing four initiatives involving various aspects of distance education. The most direct response to President Hull’s challenge was
a decision to plan and implement a new online masters program in the Graduate
Management Institute. This full
program, a Masters in Bioethics, is currently at the State Department of
Education for approval, and pending approval will begin in Summer, 2001.
The program is a hybrid of pure distance learning courses (to be taught
by Union College faculty, and faculty from Albany Med and Albany Law), short
required seminars in residence at the College, and practical clinical experience
in hospitals at several locations in New York State.
This program will be small, but will give the College valuable experience
in distance learning.
2. One by-product of GMI’s
new masters program is the acquisition of a College-wide site license for Blackboard-5,
the leading distance learning software on the market.
The College’s Blackboard server became operational in December, 2000 (http://online.union.edu
), and faculty from GMI and other departments were trained in mid-December.
Already this term (Winter, 2001) several faculty (Klein, Leavitt, Hull,
Reynolds, Strosberg, Manna, Motahar, Sener) have incorporated the Blackboard
software into their courses. Used
to supplement a traditional classroom course, Blackboard helps make students
more active in their learning, and extends classroom discussion beyond the
confines of the class room and class time. This is also a first step toward
being able to invite friends and alumni of the College to participate in some of
these courses.
3. For several years, faculty
in the engineering division have coordinated several International Virtual
Design Studio (IVDS) projects, in which Union students team with students at
remote sites. To date, projects
have involved collaborations with students in Turkey and France. Beginning this Winter term, we have a collaborative research
project in economics between students at Union, and students in Mumbai, India.
We plan to feature the results of these international collaborations at a
special session during this year’s Steinmetz Symposium in May.
We are also building additional international collaborative studios so
that this concept can spread to other disciplines, and other foreign partners.
4. Our joint Mellon grant with Hobart and William Smith Colleges is helping each school extend its term abroad offerings. As part of this collaboration, some of the pre-requisite courses for terms abroad will be offered via distance learning. The first of these courses is slated for Fall, 2001, when Union students will enroll in a course on the Culture of Vietnam offered at HWS. This will be the first of several courses to be developed under the Mellon grant, with offerings originating from each school.