Technology transformation: Online college, book-free classes now here

CSUCI offers less expensive pathways to degrees



PAPERLESS—California State University Channel Islands students who enroll in CSUCI’s “z-majors” in the communication and early childhood studies programs will use a variety of digital materials, including online resources, videos and materials from the college’s library, instead of traditional textbooks. Courtesy of CSUCI

PAPERLESS—California State University Channel Islands students who enroll in CSUCI’s “z-majors” in the communication and early childhood studies programs will use a variety of digital materials, including online resources, videos and materials from the college’s library, instead of traditional textbooks. Courtesy of CSUCI

It’s taken decades but at long last the merger of technology and education finally is starting to deliver on the promise of cheaper costs for college and greater accessibility for prospective students.

On the accessibility side, the state budget Gov. Jerry Brown signed June 27 included over $100 million for his ambitious online-only community college initiative that has the potential to revolutionize adult learning in California.

Meanwhile, officials at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo are making college more affordable by creating “z-majors”—courses for which students won’t need to buy a textbook.

Instead, students who enroll in CSUCI’s “z-majors” in the communication and early childhood studies programs will use a variety of digital materials, including online resources, videos and materials from the college’s library, among other tools.

That could save students $125 on average for each textbook.

“These are the same courses . . . they are merely replacing expensive textbooks with other types of course materials,” said Jill Leafstedt, CSUCI’s executive director of teaching and learning innovations. “Other than that, the courses remain the same and students earn the same credit towards their bachelor’s degree.”

Plans are in the works to add more “z-majors” in the future, she said.

“I think the trend toward digital learning has been building over the past five to 10 years,” she told the Acorn.

In today’s digital world, students crave flexibility, Leafstedt said, and digital learning gives students the ability to catch up on a reading assignment, for instance, on a mobile device at their own convenience.

“They may have to pick up a child from school, or they may have only a half-hour between classes and need to access an assignment online,” she said. “I call it ‘parking lot time.’”

Meanwhile, Brown’s online-only community college initiative is aimed primarily at younger working adults, ages 25 to 34, with some college but no degree.

His budget funneled millions into the initiative: a one-time cost of $100 million to get the program going and $20 million in ongoing annual funding.

The funding is “a significant investment in the millions of . . . workers who need better skills and a college credential to gain a better foothold in this economy,” California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley told reporters in January.

Known as Flex Learning Options for Workers, or FLOW, the online community college will provide older students who are working or have families a chance to complete career-track certificates that lead to degrees without having to drive to night school at a brick-and-mortar campus.

FLOW’s target audience is the 2.5 million California “stranded” adults who have “some” or no college and no credential and limited access to a college campus.

About 48 percent of those residents are from Spanish-speaking households, according to an analysis by the governor’s office.

A third of students in the California Community Colleges system now take at least one class online, and the success rate is more than 60 percent. But FLOW will be the first fully online public college in California history.

“The college will create program pathways to . . . jobs in growing industries,” the CCC’s website said.

In April, CCC officials announced that the online college’s first career pathway for workers will be medical coding, a high-demand job that can pay employees above $50,000 a year to start.

Some CCC faculty members feared an online college would compete with the system’s 114 regular community college campuses, according to EdSource, an online magazine that tracks education trends in California.

But Brown’s proposal says the college “will not impact traditional community colleges’ enrollment because its enrollment base will be working adults who are not currently accessing higher education.”

“The community colleges have really been leading the way” in digital learning in California, Leafstedt said.

That may be so, but CSUCI is the first college in the CSU system to develop textbook-free majors for undergraduates, spokesperson Kim Lamb Gregory said. At Cal State Fullerton, officials offer a master’s degree major in business that is textbook-free, she said.

Grants from the CSU chancellor’s office and from AB 798, also known as the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015, provided $110,000 to fund CSUCI’s initiative, called “openCI.”

Also spurring the digital learning trend are growing numbers of digital textbook publishers. And these days college professors have a widening wealth of digital educational resources at their disposal that can be cheaply licensed for use in the classroom.

At CSUCI, more instructors are opening up to the idea of replacing textbooks with free or low-cost digital resources, Leafstedt said.

When professors view the cost of their textbooks versus much cheaper digital resources “they’re more than willing” to offer students a non-textbook option, she said.

Officials have started exploring the possibility of adding a “z-major” in health sciences and, way down the road, in general education.

But it’s not just a matter of doing away with books, Leafstedt said.

“We don’t want to just get rid of books if the quality (of digital materials to replace them) isn’t there,” she said.