Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business
ASU Announces Latest Investment in Online Learning
Arizona State University (ASU) has launched a new online experiential learning program.
ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (“The College”) announced the new Online Undergraduate Research Scholars (OURS) program—a hands-on, multi-faceted program that expands upon traditional offerings at The College and is designed specifically for students enrolled through ASU Online.
“The OURS program reinforces The College’s commitment to excellence and inclusion by creating opportunities that enable students to feel well-equipped for their future careers,” Patrick Kenney, dean of The College, says in a press release. “We are excited this program is the first of its kind at the university for online students and has the potential to serve the nearly 58,000 undergraduate students enrolled in online degree programs at ASU.”
BRINGING EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ONLINE
While 82% of ASU Online students are pursuing career goals in medicine and scientific research, more than half of the online students surveyed in introductory biology courses say that they had not heard about research opportunities that were offered online, recent research finds.
“Our online students are an integral part of the greater ASU community, and they are here to stay,” Ara Austin, director of online engagement and strategic initiatives and a clinical assistant professor in the School of Molecular Sciences, who has spearheaded the OURS program, says. “The fact that research opportunities are not widely available to online students across the academic disciplines is an issue that we needed to address as an institution. We hope that the OURS program will be able to generate creative, scalable solutions that will provide critical experiential learning experiences to the online students.”
A MULTI-FACETED APPROACH
The new OURS program includes a variety of components including: providing seed funding to faculty to develop group-based research courses for online students; offering scholarships to online students who have excelled in research; creating a new introductory course focused on teaching research principles for online students; and organizing community building events such as research symposiums and professional development workshops for online students.
“As an undergraduate, I struggled until my professor engaged me in their research,” Julie Greenwood, associate professor and vice dean for educational initiatives at EdPlus, says. “The experience completely changed my life, and it is why I am where I am today. ASU is committed to bringing transformative experiences, such as undergraduate research, to our online students. The OURS Program will change lives.”
Sources: Arizona State University, American Physiological Society
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