Governors State University (GSU) has recognized that online education is not only for distant students. Many local students also need online education. Even students residing in Prairie Place take some of their classes online. Moreover, working students sometimes need to take online courses that are asynchronous in order to work around their work schedules. Furthermore, given the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, online education has become a necessity to serve all our students during this emergency.
When GSU was founded, it was –among other things– a pioneer in Distance Education. Today, it does very little Distance Education, and it neither is a pioneer nor is in the vanguard of online education. However, it does some online education, and it strives to do it well. GSU has a Center for Active Engagement and Scholarship (CAES) that guides the university in regard to online education. Unfortunately, this center is currently understaffed and needs additional resources (this is my personal opinion).
During the past five years, GSU’s College of Business (COB) worked hard and made investments in regard to online education. Most of its tenure-track faculty took courses and/or workshops on how to develop and teach online courses. That same faculty developed a very successful online Supply-Chain Management MBA program. Moreover, GSU’s MBA program was ranked #18 (out of more than 400 programs) in the 2018 “Best Value Online MBA” list by OnlineMBA Today. Starting last year, the COB began to implement Quality Matter (QM) standards for its faculty and courses. QM is the premier, not-for-profit organization that promotes high quality online and blended (hybrid) courses. GSU became (or is in the process of becoming) a member of QM and will soon start implementing its standards and peer-reviewing to its courses university-wide.
Mission 2025 added a new goal to GSU’s strategy: Strong Cyber Presence. While this only happened a few weeks ago and it is impossible to expect that any changes could have occurred since then, this should guide GSU to invest in supporting the people, tools, and environment that are needed to succeed in today’s digital world. This includes, but is not limited to, investing further in developing excellent, high quality, student-friendly online courses and programs.
Recent Comments