The UF Online Symposium: “Online Learning and the Future of Higher Education Conference” was held on December 3-4, 2013. I attended the wonderful keynote by Sanjay Sarma on Dec. 3 and the full event on Dec. 4, and it was fabulous. The video recordings of the speakers are now available on the Bob Graham Center website.
The event was really fabulous for its emphasis on rigor, excellence, and opportunity with UF Online. The new courses for UF Online are listed in the Handbook here: http://handbook.ufonline.ufl.edu/courses/
More classes are planned for and in development for new semesters. The new online courses offer exciting opportunities to share rare and unique materials with expert context with librarians, curators (of book, museum, oral history, and others collections), archivists, and other collection-resource experts. It’s so very exciting to think about even more UF students being able to take great classes from UF and explore and experience unique Florida history materials held at UF, with UF Online students and the world having full and free access to all of the many UF Digital Collections with collections like Pioneer Days in Florida, the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica Collections, the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature and Culture Digital Collections, the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC; www.dloc.com which has many partners including UF), and supports partner collections like those from UF’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP), and so many more!
For more about the event, see the Bob Graham Center for Public Service website, and information from the site is copied below:
Leaders from around the nation and faculty and administrators from UF gathered to engage in a substantive discussion about new technologies and ways they can be deployed to strengthen the learning experience of students. Issues surrounding online education from delivery platforms to student engagement to intellectual property were addressed.
December 3
Keynote Address: Sanjay Sarma
Director of Digital Learning and Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Can the digital revolution in higher education enhance the residential experience of students?
December 4
Presentation: Richard A. DeMillo, Distinguished Professor of Computing and Management, Director, Center for 21st Century Universities, Lumina Foundation Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology
New Ecosystems for Higher Education: The Road Ahead
Panel Discussion
Mary Watt, Chair of Languages, Literatures & Cultures and Associate Professor of Italian and Andy McCollough, Associate Provost for Teaching and Technology and Professor of Finance11:45-12:45pm
Lunch Address: Will Weatherford, Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives
Concluding Comments: Provost Joe Glover
SURVEY
The Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) conducted a survey to determine faculty perspectives on the challenges and benefits the new technologies pose for higher education. The results of the BEBR survey were sent to all meeting participants prior to the event and were used as a springboard for discussion. The results can be found here.