Digital Education Working Group (2016)

Charge:

• Charge 1: Investigate the place of online courses within the Rice curriculum/experience.

  a. What policies are needed to ensure that online courses match on-campus courses with similar requirements, workload, contact hours and credits?
  b. What policies are needed regarding the number of allowed online courses for majors or for overall graduation requirements?
  c. Should non-Rice online courses be treated differently than Rice online courses in terms of credit?

• Charge 2: What are the goals of Rice Online and other online initiatives at Rice?
  
  a. How are past and current activities working to achieve these goals? How have resources been allocated?
  b.  Summarize some key ways in which Rice faculty and programs are engaging online and highlight some notable accomplishments?

• Charge 3: Investigate the way that online courses/digital content can potentially solve problems that Rice faces with its curriculum. (we note that digital content is widely used by faculty and students, and is not generated solely by Rice faculty, nor controlled by Rice policies)
  
  a.  Are there areas in which digital education provides a unique solution to Rice needs? For example, do online courses offer a potential solution to over-subscribed introductory classes?
  b.  What are the ways that online courses affect the Rice experience?

Members:

• David Alexander, Chair
• Carl Caldwell
• Rachel Kimbro
• Caroline Levander
• Kirsten Ostherr
• Griffin Thomas

Read the report from the working group.