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With the regarding changes to its online strategy, CU Boulder leaders are embarking on next steps to integrate these changes into the campus’s online strategy, announced a year ago.

The CU system message noted a multi-campus project team has delivered recommendations to the chancellors and the president that align with the online and digital education plans of the four CU campuses and adjust to lessons learned during the pandemic. CU Boulder Senior Vice Provost of Online Education Robert McDonald and Executive Vice Provost Ann Schmiesing serve on the project team, with CU Boulder subject matter experts in areas such as marketing, admissions, instructional design, technology and human resources serving on subgroups.

“The recommendations have been accepted,” said McDonald, who clarified, “Chief among them is that the CU system will continue to provide support for the CU Online platform and aggregator website (online.cu.edu), while the campuses will provide all other functions for online learning modalities, in support of the students, faculty and curriculum of our campus.”

McDonald emphasized CU Boulder’s digital and online education focus remains firmly anchored in the campus’s unique mission, as articulated by the faculty, staff and student members of the 2019 Academic Futures/Financial Futures Online Strategy Working Group and as incorporated into the provost’s vision.

That vision sets four priorities for CU Boulder’s online and distance education:

• The development of post-baccalaureate online degrees, including master’s degrees, credentials and credit-bearing courses in areas such as executive education, alongside noncredit executive and workforce offerings and experiences, such as microcredentials, badges and continuing professional education.
• Further development of pedagogically appropriate online courses that will be available to resident Boulder campus undergraduate students within CU Boulder’s base tuition rates.
• Promoting student success through the intentional development of courses that increase undergraduate persistence and degree completion.
• The development of other courses in the undergraduate space beyond the boundaries of the Boulder campus—courses for non-CU Boulder students available on a global level.

The CU Boulder online and distance education strategy is built on these four priorities and the working group’s guiding principles, which include specific recommendations for CU Boulder’s online operations and resources, the fostering of an agile and collaborative culture of innovation in the development and delivery of online and hybrid offerings, a focus on the student experience and student success, and emphasis on the faculty’s principal role in originating academic policy and standards related to the initiation and direction of all courses, curricula and degree offerings.

McDonald said in the fall, the campus will move ahead with the next steps for its online strategy, built on these priorities and guiding principles.