It’s The End of Cal State Online As We Know It . . .

In a letter to campus leaders, Cal State University system office last month announced that Cal State Online will no longer operate as originally conceived. Emphasis added below.

As the CSU continues to expand its online education strategies, Cal State Online will evolve as a critical component. An early Cal State Online goal will continue: to increase the quality and quantity of fully online education offerings to existing and prospective CSU students, resulting in successful completion of courses and graduation.

The re-visioning of Cal State Online was recommended by the Council of Presidents and approved by the chancellor. This will include a shift to a communication, consultation and services’ strategy for fully online campus degree programs, credentials, certificates and courses supported by opt-in shared services. Cal State Online’s shared services will be designed, delivered and managed to:

1. Make it easy for prospective and existing students to discover, decide, enroll and successfully complete their CSU online education opportunities.

2. Make it more cost-effective for CSU campuses to develop, deliver and sustain their high- quality fully online degree, credential and certificate programs and courses.

Background in a nutshell

In early 2010 a sub-set of the Cal State presidents – the Technology Steering Committee (TSC) – came up with a plan to get the system to aggressively push online education across the system. In fall 2011 the group commissioned a consultant’s set of reports to help them pick an operating model, with the reports delivered in February 2012. This study led to the creation of CSU Online, conceived as a separate 501(c)3 non-profit group ((I have not independently verified that the organization truly was set up as a 501(c)3.)) run by the system, with the plan to use a for-profit Online Service Provider (OSP). ((Pearson had a team in place at Cal State providing LMS, implementation and integration services, enrollment management & marketing, course design support, analytics and reporting, learning object repository, help desk and technical support, training and faculty support.)) Early on they realized that Colorado State University was already using the CSU Online name, and the initiative was renamed Cal State Online. The idea was to offer fully-online programs offered by individual campuses in a one-stop shop. Based on an RFP process, in August 2012 Cal State Online selected Pearson as their OSP partner.

Some media coverage of initiative:

• Cal State’s Online Plan, Inside Higher Ed, March 2012
• CSU Announces Partnership with Pearson eCollege on
  Cal State Online Initiative, Cal State press release, July 2012
• Cal State Goes Online, Slowly, Inside Higher Ed, August 2012
• Cal State University offers new online program for 2013, SJSU Spartan Daily, September 2012

The March IHE article quoted official Cal State documents to describe the initiative.

“The goal of Cal State Online is to create a standardized, centralized, comprehensive business, marketing and outreach support structure for all aspects of online program delivery for the Cal State University System,” says the draft RFP. In the open letter, the executive director offers assurances that “participation is optional” for each of the system’s nearly two dozen campuses, “all programs participating in Cal State Online are subject to the same approval processes as an on-campus program,” and “online courses will meet or exceed the quality standards of CSU face-to-face courses.”

What has changed?

This change is significant and recent, meaning that Cal State likely does not have full plans on what will happen in the future. For now:

• Cal State Online will no longer be a separate operating entity, and the remnant, or “re-visioned” services will be run by the existing Academic Technology Services department within the Chancellor’s Office.

The re-visioning Cal State Online team will be led by Gerry Hanley (Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Technology Services) with Sheila Thomas (State University Dean, Extended and Continuing Education).

• Pearson is no longer the OSP, and in fact, they had already changed their role many months ago ((I believe this occurred Feb 2014 but am not sure.)) to remove the on-site team and become more of a platform provider for the LearningStudio (aka eCollege) LMS and supporting services.
• Cal State is no longer attempting to provide a centralized, comprehensive support structure “for all aspects of online program delivery” but instead will centrally provide select services through the individual campuses.
• It is clear that Cal State is positioning this decision to show as much continuity as possible. They will continue to provide some of the services started under Cal State Online and will continue to support the programs that have already been offered through the group.

Some services will continue and CSU may keep the name, but it’s the end of Cal State Online as we know it.

I am working on a longer post to explain what happened, including (hopefully) some interviews for supporting information . . . stay tuned.

Update: Changed description of Pearson change and added footnote.