August 15, 2013, 12:01 am
By Steve Kolowich
Professors at the University of Texas at Austin should get comfortable with the idea of using online course materials created by their colleagues at other institutions, according to William C. Powers Jr., the university president.
“Where appropriate,” the university and its faculty members “should learn from, leverage, and grant credit for high-quality online content and technology created by other leading universities,” wrote Mr. Powers in a campuswide memo released this morning.
The memo, which university communications officials distributed to news outlets, covers a range of issues relating to “technology-enhanced education,” but the thrust is that the time for small pilot projects is over, and that Austin, the flagship of the University of Texas system, needs to figure out how to make various online projects operate at a campuswide scale.
“We now have reached a new stage in our evolution,” wrote Mr. Powers. “We must make decisions that will lay the groundwork for the decades ahead. And we must bring larger numbers of faculty and campus leaders into this effort.” Read more.
