Click on any of the following to skip to the answer. Underlined phrases are links to additional pages or documents.
What is CourseShare?
What principles guide participating institutions?
What courses are offered?
What makes shared courses successful?
What is Campus Coordinator?
How are shared courses identified?
How are courses delivered- what technologies are employed?
Why are CourseShare courses focused on small collaborations between 2-4 campuses? Why aren't they open to students at all CIC institutions?
What is the difference between Host and Home campuses?
How many students can participate in a shared course?
Can I see an example of a VC facilitated CourseShare course?
Does CIC collect student evaluations?
What motivates an instructor or department to share a course via CourseShare? (incentives, benefits...)
Are CourseShare courses team taught? Are TA's or GA's employed on the home/receiving campuses?
I have a small graduate course I might be able to share with other CIC schools. What should I do?
I would like my students to be able to access a course at another CIC school. What should I do?
How are students enrolled in CourseShare courses?
How do students receive grades for shared courses?
Can I get funding to support sharing my course?
Do you have a question not listed here? Email it to aemarks@uiuc.edu.
What is CourseShare?
CourseShare provides students with access to more courses by making courses at other CIC schools available through technology.
In December 2005, the CIC Deans of Liberal Arts & Sciences launched an effort to establish a voluntary, systematic method of sharing courses across the curriculum to enhance access to specialized graduate and low-enrollment offerings for all participating CIC universities and their students. The CourseShare initiative focuses primarily on offerings that can be “technology facilitated” to eliminate barriers of time and distance. While the initial focus has included less commonly taught languages, cultural and area studies, and other specialized seminars in the social sciences and humanities, the project is intended to support course sharing across the arts and sciences curriculum.
See the Report to the LAS Deans from April 2006 for more background on the establishment of this pilot project.
What principles guide participating institutions?
See the draft of the Guiding Principles for Sharing Courses presented to the Arts & Science Deans in Fall 2006.
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What courses are offered?
Current Courses: There were 7 courses shared in Fall 2006 and there are 6 courses for Winter/Spring 2007 including the ten year old multiple-module Advanced Political Methodologies approach and the Uzbek course now in its fourth year.
Database of Confirmed & Potential Courses: See the CourseShare web tool for a list of all confirmed and potential courses including 3 new courses for Spring 2007, approximately 40 possible courses for Fall 2007, and 60 other courses either offered by or needed by one or more CIC schools. By March, plans for shared courses will be finalized for the Fall 2007 term.
What makes shared courses successful?
Successful shared courses largely depend on three primary qualities- value, reciprocity, and sustainability. The course must add value for students, offering something they can't get locally. Sustainability is important so that students and departments can plan a year in advance and rely on the courses offered elsewhere or on the student interest in their offerings. Reciprocity greatly increases sustainability because there is balance and it doesn't feel like one school is always giving away courses and another school is always taking. However, reciprocity is general in that one school may host a Central Asian Language but may receive a history course. At the end of a term, sustainability is more likely when all participating schools feel there is balance between how many courses/students they host and how many courses their students take from other schools.
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What is a Campus Coordinator?
Each Arts & Science Dean designated a campus representative to liase with CIC and implement CourseShare. Campus Coordinators may be associate deans, directors of language centers, provost office leaders, and others-each brings unique qualifications and opportunities. Campus Coordinators keep in touch with CIC by email and monthly telephone conferences. They often share ideas and exchange strategies for reaching interested faculty. They initiate contact with departments to spread the word about CourseShare and they serve as a valuable resources/contacts for students and faculty on their campuses. See the list of Campus Coordinators.
How are shared courses identified?
Campus Coordinators work with departments and faculty to identify specialized courses with smaller enrollment that might be candidates for sharing. They also learn about unmet course needs from interacting with the faculty and students. This information can be shared via the web tool. Campus Coordinators can enter information. Faculty, departments, and the Campus Coordinators can browse the web tool. Along with CIC staff, the Campus Coordinators look for possible matches and initiate discussions with possible participating schools. Before course arrangements can be finalized, the involved Arts & Science Deans must pre-approve the shared course.
Future plans include a possible survey of graduate students and faculty to help further expand CourseShare.
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How are courses delivered- what technologies are employed?
CourseShare does not dictate the technology to be used; rather, the teaching faculty determine the appropriate and most comfortable method for their own courses. To date most courses have been delivered via live, synchronous videoconferencing (VC) though 2 new online asynchronous courses will be available for Fall 2007. This has been the preferred method based on faculty feedback because it most closely resembles the live classroom experience and requires less instructional development/modification time and expense on the part of the faculty.
Most CIC campuses have VC equipped classrooms available to faculty, many with supportive services offered centrally or through the college. Campus Coordinators and LAS IT Directors are available to discuss existing technology with interested faculty and demonstrations can be made available on each campus.
What is the difference between Host and Home campuses?
The host campus is the teaching campus- where the course instructor is already teaching the course. The home campus is the receiving campus, where students 'tune in' to the course via videoconference.
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How many students can participate in a shared course?
The instructor at the host campus determines how many total students can take the course, how many other campuses can receive the course, and how many seats are available to each. Typically, a shared course has relatively low enrollment prior to being shared. To date, most shared courses have had fewer than 10 students at the host campus and have had, on average, 3-5 students at each home/receiving site. However, there are examples of successful shared courses with a total of just 7 students from 2 campuses and others with 40 students from 4 campuses.
Can I see an example of a VC facilitated CourseShare course?
Faculty and students can review a live CourseShare course shared between IU, OSU, & Iowa via videoconference by logging in to the live online broadcast of Introductory Uzbek between 5:30-6:30 PM ET Monday through Thursday here: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar/login.php . Email aemarks@uiuc.edu for the login/password information.
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I have a small graduate or specialized course I might be able to share with other CIC schools. What should I do?
You can contact your Campus Coordinator or the CIC Program Manager Amber Marks (aemarks@uiuc.edu). Courses approved by the Arts & Science Deans can be added to the web tool and Campus Coordinators can help explore interest on other campuses.
I would like my students to be able to access a course at another CIC school. What should I do?
You can contact your Campus Coordinator or the CIC Program Manager Amber Marks (aemarks@uiuc.edu). They can add a course needed by students to the web tool and explore offerings on other campuses.
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Does CIC collect student evaluations?
CIC does not collect student evaluations or grade information. Some of the host institutions may automatically do this and may or may not include students at the home/receiving institutions. However, CIC distributes a web survey to all CourseShare students and instructors each term with questions focused on format, student participation, and the CourseShare experience.
What motivates an instructor or department to share a course via CourseShare? (incentives, benefits...)
This piece is critical to the success of the project. It’s also a hard one to answer because it really differs by campus. Some examples of incentives for faculty include: retaining a course that would otherwise be cancelled due to low enrollment, collaborating with peers at other CIC campuses, expanding offerings for their graduate students, enriching their low-enrollment courses by having more than 2 students in discussions, and expanding program offerings (i.e. in developing a new minor, courses from other campuses might be incorporated).
Incentives for the institution include opportunities to collaborate with other CIC schools, attracting graduate students, and enhancing current student access to courses. Across the CIC there are more than 100 languages taught, but any one CIC school typically has 15-30. Through CourseShare, students might be able to access many more.
The Advanced Political Methods collaboration, in it’s eleventh year, is exciting because it reveals many of the advantages of a well developed partnership. Each of the 4 schools contributes two different modules over a period of 2 years or so, which means their students then have access to up to 8 that are offered. The reciprocity, we believe, greatly contributes to the value and sustainability.
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Are CourseShare courses team taught? Are TA's or GA's employed on the home/receiving campuses?
Occasionally. There is no prescribed approach to course instruction; some of the Advanced Political Methods courses are team taught. The faculty/instructors describe this as a real benefit- being able to collaborate with experts in their field. There are two additional courses currently in development with multiple campuses involved in the content creation and presumably the delivery as well. Many of the other courses simply have a host instructor. Sometimes with the languages there will be native speaker present at the home/receiving side to help, like a tutor (not like a full TA though). Flexibility is necessary because the campuses and students differ greatly.
Why are CourseShare courses focused on small collaborations between 2-4 campuses? Why aren't they open to students at all CIC institutions?
There are many factors resulting in the deliberate limitation of participation in courses to date. First, VC delivered courses are usually limited to 4 campuses participating in any one shared course because that’s the most that many of our sites can accommodate with existing VC equipment.
Faculty are most comfortable with 2-4 campuses , we’ve rarely had interest from more than 3 or 4 schools in any course, and once you have a handful of students at 2 or 3 campuses, you’ve already reached the maximum comfortable enrollment for specialized graduate courses (defined by the instructor, but usually somewhere between 8-15).
One last note on this issue- we’ve learned it is imperative that these courses be listed in the official course timetables prior to the term of instruction. Students don’t find out about them unless promoting them is a priority.
All this being said, the new online history courses are offered to all schools and can accommodate more than 15 students so we’re hopeful this will be an opportunity to better understand this approach. As technology continues to evolve we anticipate that courses may involve larger numbers of campuses for shared courses.
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How are students enrolled in CourseShare courses?
The CIC Registrar Contacts for CourseShare have established administrative processes and procedures for sharing student enrollment and grade information throughout the term. Each CourseShare course will be listed in the timetable for the host and home/receiving campuses, either with a specific course number or with a temporary course number. Students at the host institution enroll like usual. Students at the home/receiving campuses enroll in the designated course as with any other courses they are taking. Prior to the first day of class, the Registrar Contacts share student information and enroll the home/receiving students at the host campus. This allows all students in a shared course to have access to course management systems, libraries, and other essential resources.
How do students receive grades for shared courses?
The CIC Registrar Contacts for CourseShare have established procedures for sharing student enrollment and grade information throughout the term. Grades will be translated by the Registrar Contacts and communicated to the student.
Can I get funding to support sharing my course?
The CIC does not offer funds or grants to support instructors. Many campuses have technology grants offered at the college or campus level that might appeal to faculty. Sometimes the offices of the Arts & Science Deans may offer funding for a short time for a graduate assistant at the host campus to modify materials for use online or for a tutor available to language students at the home/receiving campus. However, most CourseShare instructors share their courses without additional financial incentives.
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