Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron announced to the Brown community Sept. 5 that the University will launch two pilot programs of online courses "to help advance our understanding of online environments and their creative potential for enhancing the Brown curriculum." The University will begin offering a few of its highest-enrollment courses online for credit during this year's summer session and will also partner with the online course platform Coursera to offer three not-for-credit classes to the general public. Though the latter announcement has attracted more publicity and attention, the for-credit courses also raise some interesting ramifications for the Brown model of education. We question whether these courses align with the University's plans to "modernize" higher education for the better.
These online courses offer several potential benefits. Many introductory classes are by nature heavily enrolled and textbook-oriented. These classes, in contrast to smaller seminar-like classes, tend to diminish the instructor's role and influence in defining the course. To remedy this, students could take these online courses over the summer to fulfill basic requirements, and thus have more opportunities to take smaller, more engaging classes during the fall and spring semesters. Furthermore, not all students take the same number and range of Advanced Placement classes in high school. If the online summer option is extended into more than three classes, students who did not have the chance to take challenging courses in fundamental subjects - for example, AP Chemistry - in high school could do so over the summer to prepare for other courses.
We question, however, whether this model should offer Brown credit. The Dean of the College conducted a survey answered by almost 900 students that found that 59 percent said they were not in favor of online courses with Brown credit, while only 24 percent said they were in favor. Many students have expressed concern with the idea of expanding a Brown education to the Internet, arguing that a Brown education - the residential experience, the student engagement - encompasses more than just the classroom experience.
A more favorable model, perhaps, could be to provide students with the opportunity to complete introductory requirements online that would offer advanced placement instead of credit. A model for this already exists in the form of the CHEM 0100: "Introductory Chemistry" tutorial, an online not-for-credit class that allows students who pass it to place immediately into the higher-level CHEM 0330: "Equilibrium, Rate and Structure." Certain introductory classes, particularly in calculus and the sciences, would lend themselves to this model. This is essentially the same model as the Advanced Placement program, but the Brown platform could be particularly tailored to the University's curriculum, provide more opportunities for higher-level thinking and be completed in a shorter time frame.
This past June, the Ad Hoc Committee on Online Education submitted a report entitled "Online Education and the Residential Experience," in which they provided many of the recommendations now being implemented. The report suggested that along with the pilot courses, the College Curriculum Council "revisit Brown's current policy on online courses, in order to clarify the circumstances in which credits earned online could be acceptable to satisfy Brown degree requirements." We agree with this suggestion, and we appreciate the committee's use of surveys and focus groups to seek the opinion of the Brown community. The more engaged various stakeholders are in this evolution, the more likely it is that we will collectively produce a result that best represents the unique mix of innovation and tradition that characterizes the University.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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