University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations Joins Academic Alliance

Four universities collaborate to enrich online distance education programs.

Madison, WI, February 2, 2001-University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations (UWLI) and three other major universities are forming an alliance to improve existing online distance education programs and to join together to assess the feasibility of commercial education ventures.

Along with UWLI, the University of California-Berkeley Extension, Penn State University's World Campus, and the University of Washington have agreed to work together to advance online learning practices at their institutions. Together, the institutions offer more than 500 online distance education courses in a broad range of curricula.

"Most of us have great marketing plans for our regions but we need to work together to expand our efforts globally," said Dr. Michael Offerman, dean/executive director of UW Learning Innovations. "By this partnership, we maximize our efforts to reach greater populations for our collective programs."

According to Offerman, the alliance will focus on assessing current institutional practices and standards, evaluating opportunities in the private sector, initializing joint sales efforts, and researching opportunities for collaborative program development. The four institutions will also explore opportunities to share academic resources to offer collaborative online distance education programs nationally and internationally.

One stimulus for the creation of the alliance was a need to more effectively assess the value of the many commercial ventures that have arisen around the rapidly developing online learning industry. Online learning has expanded the market for online programs internationally and placed a new emphasis on collaborative marketing efforts.

"The explosion of activity in the online learning field has led to e-commerce and service-related businesses, which want to work with us," said David Szatmary, vice provost of Educational Outreach at the University of Washington. "Through the alliance, our institutions can make better decisions about how best to assess and collaborate with these for-profits."

The alliance represents four institutions that have had a strong tradition of leadership in distance education and will continue to make a significant commitment to online distance education. UWLI, for example, leverages more than 100 years of UW distance education experience into interactive online design. Created by the UW Board of Regents in 1997, UWLI helps learners in both educational and corporate settings to reach their goals by transforming traditional classroom models into online courses available anytime, anywhere. UWLI also creates entirely new courseware to meet the learning and training needs of individuals, corporations, and organizations.