New Consortium’s Mission: Improve Liberal-Arts Teaching Online - Jeffrey Young, Chronicle of Higher Education

Four liberal-arts colleges on Monday formed a consortium to share information about their experiments with online education, and more members may soon join in. The focus is not on bringing down the cost of education, but on improving online-teaching projects — whether all-online or hybrid courses — by sharing experiences and collaborating. The premise is that liberal-arts institutions have goals and methods for going online that are different from those of research institutions. “There’s a steep learning curve to figuring out how to use this technology with our students, and with our teaching style,” said Douglas Johnson, an associate professor of psychology and director of the Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research at Colgate University, a founding member of the group. By working together, he said, “we can save each other from reinventing wheels.” http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-consortiums-mission-improve-liberal-arts-teaching-online/56621