By
Katie Clark
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Arizona Regents University to offer courses from UA, ASU and NAU
Arizona's three state universities will soon start collaborating to create a network of online graduate and undergraduate courses.
The goal of Arizona Regents University, the recently approved online university, is to provide educational opportunities to time- and place-bound students, as well as current University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University students, through the Internet.
"(ARU) is going to try to really make a difference to the number of people that can get an education in Arizona," said Sally Jackson, vice provost for educational technology and UA's representative for the ARU Project Management Team. "Almost every large university has an online degree program."
"It opens up more course opportunities," said Jerry Hogle, an English professor and chair of the Senate Faculty.
Funding for ARU will come from money generated by Proposition 301, the voter-approved initiative that raised Arizona's sales tax by 0.6 percent.
The Arizona Board of Regents approved the budget plans for ARU Friday, setting aside $2 million for the first year.
"I hope that we can use (Proposition) 301 money to make it easier for people to learn," said Regent Judy Gignac at the meeting.
Initial planning will begin within the next few months, Jackson said.
Jackson said she hopes ARU will expand UA's current online education, which offers master's degrees in the areas of engineering, information resources and library sciences.
"We're looking to expand that substantially," she said.
Jackson said initial plans will have an emphasis on upper division courses, since UA relies heavily on community colleges to provide affordable general education courses in classrooms, on television and through the Internet.
"We have a very strong community college system," Jackson said.
Hogle added he does not want people to be deceived by the name of the university, fearing that students and faculty might think it is a separate entity from UA.
"That is not going to happen," he said. "It is going to be a consortium of classes for all three universities."
Students already at UA will be able to take courses online through ASU or NAU, even though they do not have to pay tuition to those universities, Hogle said. UA will plan ways to reimburse the two schools for the ARU classes UA students take, he said.
"The catch is that faculty have to check that courses can count for credit," he said, adding that students have to go through their departments if they want to register for an ARU course.
While Jackson said ARU will not initially offer full-degree programs for undergraduates online, she said that is not too far down the road.
"Eventually, that will be possible," she said. "We're not very far from it. Within two to three years we'll be able to have an entire undergraduate program online."
ONLINE INFO
The student page for all online electronic courses offered by Arizona public universities is http://azdistancelearning.org.
Arizona Learning Systems, the community college network for online education, is at http://www.als.cc.az.us.
