Maturing distance education program adopts policies

South Carolina's distance education (DE) program can no longer be considered in its infancy. The growth of Internet and video conferencing based courses has become so prevalent that the MUSC Board of Trustees recently approved 10 new DE policies covering everything from priorities for facility use to room rental fees.

“These policies will help us manage our facilities while helping the university control costs,” Geoff Freeman, director of distance education, indicated in an interview last week. “The individual colleges who use DE will now help support their programs through usage fees,” he added.

The usage fees will not affect regularly scheduled; credit-bearing academic courses, but will apply to non-academic uses such as meetings and conferences. “The university has borne the cost of equipping and operating distance education facilities from the beginning, and now it's time that those who use them help support the costs,” Freeman said.

Other policies that were approved cover DE room scheduling procedures, priorities for DE classroom use, and room use by external groups such as other state agencies and educational institutions. The new policies will help the university plan for controlled growth of its DE facilities.

The Colleges of Nursing and Health Professions are currently the predominant users of DE classrooms. As new programs have been introduced, or current courses have expanded to DE formats, the faculty has adopted the new technology and delivery methods with relative ease.

“A lot of people think distance education is limited to site-to-site video-interaction,” Freeman said. “They don't realize that it extends to on-line courses.” He explained that such on-line, or Internet, courses enable the university to extend its educational offerings to students in more remote locales.

“Distance education allows us to reach out to students who might otherwise not enroll,” he said, “and that allows us to extend our reach throughout the state.” Freeman also observed that Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of academic affairs and provost, often remarks, “We're not the Medical University of Charleston, we're the Medical University of South Carolina.”

Highlights of DE Policies

  • Room usage fee established for other than regularly scheduled, credit bearing activities such as meeting and conferences. Fee is $150 per hour, with 25 percent discount for MUSC users (departments, continuing education divisions, faculty, staff, students) and a 10 percent discount for South Carolina colleges and universities, state agencies and non-profit entities.
  • Priority for DE room use is first to MUSC/DE academic courses and programs, then to MUSC fee-for-service DE activities and programs, non-MUSC fee-for-service programs, and lastly South Carolina non-DE classes, programs and events.
  • DE room requests must be submitted no later than 5 p.m. of the Wednesday preceding the week in which the DE facility is to be used.
  • All DE room requests must be submitted to the MUSC Distance Education Office via email or to 21C Erhardt Street.
  • All MUSC DE polices may be found on the DE home page at www.edserv.musc.edu/de/

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