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News
November 12, 2008
Lumina Foundation for Education Awards Global Campus $650K for Study of Accessibility and Affordability of Online Education Programs
The University of Illinois’ Global Campus has received a second grant from Lumina Foundation for Education, an Indianapolis-based private foundation dedicated to expanding educational access and success beyond high school.
The $650,000 grant will be dispersed over two years, with the goal of determining what factors contribute to the accessibility and affordability of online education programs, success of online learners, career success of graduates of online programs and the satisfaction of their employers. The hope is to embed assessment early in the developing organization to help ensure that the relevant data are collected, archived and analyzed, and then used to enhance the long-term success of The Global Campus and its students.
"The Global Campus mission of expanding access to high-quality online programs is a natural fit with the Lumina Foundation's focus on helping people achieve their potential by expanding access to and success in post-secondary education," said B. Joseph White, president of the University of Illinois.
During the first year of Lumina funding, in 2007-08, the University of Illinois Global Campus has made progress in achieving these goals by developing assessment tools, acquiring and implementing a student contact database and developing a comprehensive set of metrics for Global Campus functions.
Continued support from Lumina Foundation for two more years will build on this work by implementing a data-driven review process and integrating academic assessment tools with a longitudinal database of student information and contacts. The Global Campus will continue to develop and use measurements in such areas as access and recruitment, instructor effectiveness, partnering academic unit satisfaction, student success, business model and overall mission fulfillment. Results of these assessments and measurements will be used to improve Global Campus programs and to help students succeed.
"Currently, many online providers fail to either collect or integrate extensive data or, in the case of for-profit institutions, they regard that information as proprietary," said Chester Gardner, who is leading The Global Campus as special assistant to the president of the University. "The Global Campus hopes to both participate in and contribute to the process of standard-setting and benchmarking among virtual institutions."
Lumina Foundation support will also be used to scale up these efforts through hiring a career counselor; a full-time director of research, assessment and evaluation; and a research assistant. The final year of funding will support publication of findings within the online and higher education professions and to inform the general public of the effectiveness of the Global Campus model.
About the Lumina Foundation
Lumina Foundation for Education, an Indianapolis-based private foundation, strives to help people achieve their potential by expanding access to and success in education beyond high school. Through grants for research, innovation, communication and evaluation, as well as policy education and leadership development, Lumina Foundation addresses issues that affect access and educational attainment among all students, particularly underserved student groups such as minorities, first-generation college-goers, students from low-income families and working adults. The Foundation bases its mission on the belief that postsecondary education remains one of the most beneficial investments that individuals can make in themselves and that a society can make in its people.
About the University of Illinois Global Campus
The Global Campus offers online bachelor's completion degrees, master's degrees and graduate certificate programs in collaboration with partnering academic units on the University of Illinois brick-and-mortar campuses at Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield. Each program's curriculum is developed by world-class University of Illinois faculty who are leaders in their fields of study. In addition, Global Campus programs are overseen by an academic council and taught by high-quality instructors who meet rigorous requirements in both their academic fields and in online pedagogy.
University of Illinois campuses attract the nation's most talented students with hundreds of undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, many of them ranked among the best in the United States. The University is Illinois' largest college educator currently with almost 70,000 students enrolled at U. of I. campuses. Thousands more take classes off campus and online. With a faculty base of 5,600 and an alumni body of more than 570,000, the University is a major world-class institution.
