Focused on supporting and providing a personalized education experience, Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) offers a new way of approaching traditional education as we know it. OC@KU is a sense-making venture that combines no-risk, self-paced, open-access, and relevant courses with the opportunity to earn college credit in a one-stop environment. Built on a proprietary platform, OC@KU uses technology to bring together the use of open courses, assessments, and learning resources to provide learners with a customized learning path.
Since of the launch of the first OpenCourseWare project in 2002, there are now tens of thousands of open courses. Primarily due to the fact that the courses offer just-in-time, affordable learning, and self-managed learning, they remain popular.
Looking at traditional education through the new lens of open, OC@KU offers learners the opportunity of an individualized, affordable education that integrates technology, open resources, and personalized service to help them meet their career, academic, and personal goals. While this may sound like business as normal, this is actually a unique development within the realm of higher education. The result of creating and organizing a one-stop-shop for all things ‘open,’ OC@KU puts learners in charge of their learning, formal or informal. In an era in which curricula is easily accessible, OC@KU provides a manner in which learners can create, organize, and make sense of their learning.
OC@KU is a learning concierge service that adds a new dimension to higher education, removing the barriers between career advancement and education. OC@KU encourages learners to chart their own paths using assessments to recognize learning, however acquired, for academic and career value.
In addition to offering open courses developed in-house, resources are also available for free or at a low cost. Realizing that one size does not fit all and that learners have varying needs, OC@KU provides a suite of services that learners can use to customize their learning. Equally important, as part of this technological and web-driven disruption, learners’ capacity to develop and store evidence of learning in electronic portfolios – carefully organized around career, academic, or personal interests – has also been transformed, as stated by the president of OC@KU, Dr. Smith in a recent Educause article . Learners can use the open courses to learn for the sake of learning, or, if a more formal goal is desired, apply their learning toward a degree. Resources include:
• Open Portfolio. The Open Portfolio is a tool that allows learners to create a free Open Portfolio to help them track and manage their open courses. Built with an integrated API for Open Education Consortium courses, the Open Portfolio is free for users to develop learning plans around personal or professional interests. www.openlearningportfolio.com
• Learning Advisor. Learning Advisor is a free, comprehensive search tool that connects learners with thousands of open courses. This rigorous tool allows users to search for courses by subject, institution, or interest. www.learningadvisor.com/courses.
• StraighterLine. StraighterLine provides first and second year general education courses that have been evaluated and recommended for college credit by the American Council on Education. As an OC@KU course partner, any of the courses from StraighterLine can be applied toward a degree at OC@KU. www.straighterline.com
• Career Journey. Learners have free access to CareerJourney, a self-paced course which provides practical strategies for career advancement, professional development, and personal innovation; CareerJourney also includes the ability to match skill gaps to courses. www.Careerjourney.com
• CLA+. CLA+ is a low cost skills assessment tool. For a minimal fee, learners can take an assessment that will test real-life skills, which employers have overwhelmingly stated matter more to them than a particular major or GPA. The skills CLA+ tests for include analysis and problem solving, scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical reading and evaluation, and critiquing an argument. www.takeclaplus.com
The goal of OC@KU is two-fold. First, the initial goal is to provide access to resources and tools that learners can use to search, store, and track their open, informal learning. OC@KU also offers a pathway to apply the learning from open courses to a formal degree program, the Bachelor of Science in Professional Studies (BSPR). The BSPR is an interdisciplinary, accredited degree program that allows learners to work with a faculty mentor to design a customized degree pathway known as Individualized Learning Plans (ILP). The ILP includes:
• a career goal statement which enables the student and your faculty advisor to identify potential course assessments and learning options to fulfill the degree requirements
• a review of previously earned college credit
• an analysis of previous experience that can be evaluated for college credit
• potential course assessments to earn credit by exam, and
• learning required to meet the degree program.
The model of the degree program is unique. Learners have the ability to use open courses – taken anywhere. The open courses are assessed for college credit in multiple ways, through portfolio assessment, standardized assessments, and challenge exams.
Learners can develop an extensive learning portfolio which will be assessed by faculty. Faculty evaluators trained in evaluating prior learning, review and provide a credit recommendation for the portfolio.
Challenge exams are available for all of the University’s open courses. Successful completion of the challenge exams results in credit awarded by the university.
Self-paced, individualized learning doesn’t have to be lonely. Focused on supporting adult learners, creating the community experience is a vital part of the strategy.
Today’s learners are savvy consumers. They demand consumer elements such as self-management, real-time access, device availability, and socializing in their educational journey. Although the learning environment is open, proven instructional strategies that provide a positive experience are part of the design and delivery of OC@KU. The strategies include:
• Live support and feedback
• Forums and Discussion Boards
• Live Seminars using Google+ and YouTube
• Collaborative learning
Today, the evidence is positive. Since launch,
• approximately 3,666 unique learners have accessed the OC@KU open courses and have registered for 4,402 courses
• 93 have submitted prior learning portfolios for assessment
• learners have received college credit for 567 courses as a result of the portfolio assessment