Students at the University of California often struggle to coordinate their school, internship and work schedules to attend traditional lectures on campus, made more difficult because the nine campuses have unique class lists that can make obscure subjects hard to study.
The UC system hopes to make life easier for students when it debuts cross-campus online courses students can take on their own schedule.
"We’re trying to take the burden off the student and put it on technology," Mary Gilly, vice-chairwoman of UC’s system-wide faculty senate, told the Los Angeles Times.
The cross campus enrollment will feature a central online course catalog, simpler registration and departmental approvals available online. The UC system hopes the new process will reduce the bureaucracy and technological problems faced by online students in the past, particularly those students who want to take courses offered by other campuses.
The program is financed from a $10-million pool for online education and technology the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown authorized in 2013. The UC system and California’s public sector in general has been heavily criticized by former and current policymakers for its slow pace in adopting new technologies.
The program will begin with just 11 pre-existing courses from the Davis, Berkeley, Irvine and Riverside campuses.
