New bite-sized courses cater to every student, helps universities make money
[1]As universities search for new ways to move online, attract students and prepare them for the working world, new bite-sized, short courses for those who don’t have time to earn a specialized degree represent the next step. They also are a way for institutions to make money with existing resources.
For example, a decade ago, subsea engineering was a relatively obscure field in the U.S. Now, as oil drillers move farther out to sea, it’s become a vital part of Gulf Coast production.
Such rapid changes in industry leave schools like the University of Houston’s College of Engineering [2]scrambling to keep up. UH is among the institutions patching these gaps with bite-size courses that could benefit their own students while opening up a new higher education market.
“Part of the challenge is, the academic fields don’t catch up fast enough. We don’t want to be doing ‘flavor of the day’ education, we want to do something constructive over long periods of time,” said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, chief energy officer at the University of Houston.
UH, which now also has a full subsea engineering program, created a subsea certificate a few years ago as a supplement for engineering students, as well as for workers looking to keep up to date. “We listened to the industry and we sat down and created a program that would adequately respond to what the industry needed, in terms of training,” Krishnamoorti said.
(Next page: How to develop bite-sized courses)
Specialized education
Certificates, offered by a number of Texas universities, and so-called specializations being launched at a handful of schools, are short courses covering basic material–health care training or business management, for example–that universities can create and offer to their own students or sell to businesses, individuals or other schools.
“Clearly there’s always altruistic desires to educate everybody,” said Beth Mancini, associate dean for undergraduate studies in the University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing [3], another school offering certificates.
The college is finalizing three certificates–in care for the elderly, patient safety, and management and leadership–that it will offer through universities in China, and perhaps make money while doing so.
“We have courses that have this content. We have individuals who are experts in delivering this. How does the university think about re-purposing its most valuable assets: its faculty and educational content?” Mancini asked.
Certificates are quickly growing in popularity – the number awarded has spiked 57 percent since 2003, compared to 52 percent growth in associate’s degrees and just a 27 percent increase in bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce [4].
In 2012, colleges and universities across the country awarded more than 1 million certificates and just 990,000 associate’s degrees. They awarded nearly 1.8 million bachelor’s degrees.
Certificates are even more popular in Texas. Colleges awarded 74,000 certificates in 2012, 10,000 more than associate’s degrees. Texas schools awarded 110,000 bachelor’s degrees in 2012.
(Next page: The courses to consider)
High-demand fields
Some schools, with the help of private companies, are developing certificates that build toward a specialization in high-demand fields of global interest. Among these are cybersecurity, management and leadership in health care, and entrepreneurship and innovation, said Jaquelyn Scharnick, a spokeswoman for Academic Partnerships [5], which works with UT-Arlington. Those specializations consist of three progressive certificates that are offered in multiple languages and can be earned in nine months.
Rice University [6], which works with Coursera, another private company, is creating its first specialization: the fundamentals of computing, which builds off existing computer science certificates students can earn through Rice’s MOOCs.
“I think it’s a logical next step,” said Andrew Hanson, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “That’s sort of the reason we think that certificates are rising so fast, is because college costs are rising so much and the vast majority of students are going into colleges to get jobs.”
The University of Houston system offers 19 certificate programs that are fully online and taught like any other online class. The courses charge the same tuition as is charged for other classes.
The cost for a certificate can vary, but a four-course certificate in construction management, for instance, costs about $6,000. The subsea engineering certificate requires three classes at $3,000 a piece. The advanced subsea engineering certificate requires an additional three classes at the same price.
UH made $1.4 million off certificates in 2013.
Rice has 22 MOOCs, with subjects ranging from computer science to nanotechnology, electrical engineering and religion. The courses range in price. The computer science courses–three of which build the specialization–are $49 each. Officials at Rice would not say how much the university has made off the certificates.
In Arlington, officials say the certificates are too new for potential revenue to be known. Academic Partnerships launched its specialization initiative in January and has its eye on developing countries that don’t have the same academic opportunities as the U.S.
Scharnick said American universities can take advantage of a large untapped market outside of the U.S. and Western Europe.
©2014 the Houston Chronicle. Visit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.com. [7]Distributed by MCT Information Services. [8]