Online education has come to the fore as an item of discussion at the University of Virginia since last months failed attempt to oust President Teresa A. Sullivan.

It was among the areas of concern identified by Rector Helen E. Dragas as she tried to explain the move, and emails released under Freedom of Information Act requests show that it was a topic many at the top of the university were paying close attention to. In the wake of Sullivans reinstatement, it remains a hot topic among faculty.

Even Gov. Bob McDonnells appointments to the schools Board of Visitors, announced just before the end of last month, could be read to indicate an interest in the subject, with the appointment of the president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council to the board.

In her remarks, Dragas said higher education could be on the brink of an online learning revolution, now that the elite institutions have legitimized it.

In emails between Dragas and former Vice Rector Mark Kington released recently, the two discuss a New York Times editorial by David Brooks that hails online courses by companies such as UDACITY, often referred to as MOOCs, or massive open online courses, as a tidal wave about to hit higher education.

UVa engineering professor Larry G. Richards said the university has been teaching distance and online courses since 1983, offering courses first through the engineering school and later through the Curry School of Education.

First of all, we have been doing distance learning for a long time. We have only been doing online learning for the last five years, Richards said. We have special classrooms that allow us to teach classes all around the world From our view, we are on the cutting edge.

The classes offered through both schools generate tuition and can be taken for degree credit. MOOCs, by definition, do not. The classes are offered for free, do not award credit, and there is no incentive or obligation to complete them.

Mary Abouzeid, statewide director of the Teaching Educators McGuffey Practica Off-Grounds program through the Curry School, said she had seen Brooks pieces and passed them around, but for different reasons.

We read them with a completely different understanding than [Kington and Dragas] did, she said. We read it as, weve got to be careful and you dont want to go out and put junk on the Internet.

Here is the original post:
After Sullivan's failed ouster, a question: Is UVa's future online?