BY MIA SHAW, Daily Californian
The Academic Senate of the University of California signed an open letter last Friday condemning a California State Senate bill requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to accept faculty-approved online college courses for credit. SB 520, authored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, would make the 50 most oversubscribed lower-division courses in California’s higher education system available online. The open letter criticizes the bill’s inclusion of private corporate interests as well as its exaggeration of issues with undergraduate student success. According to SB 520, courses eligible for credit may be provided by private, third-party providers like edX, Coursera and Udacity, which offer massive open online courses. The Academic Senate wrote in the letter that this may allow corporate interests to replace faculty control over online curricula. “There is no possibility that UC faculty will shirk its responsibility to our students by ceding authority over courses to any outside agency,” the letter stated.
http://www.dailycal.org/2013/03/18/academic-senate-condemns-online-education-bill/
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