Revisions to online course scheduling will allow more students to enroll and receive financial aid this summer.
Duke officials have re-categorized online summer courses as single-term classes so that undergraduates can receive financial aid, Paula Gilbert, associate dean and director of Duke continuing studies and summer session, wrote in an email Monday.
In Summer 2010, students enrolled in one of the University’s two online courses were disqualified from summer financial aid. The University’s financial aid policy stipulates that students enrolled in fewer than one full course credit per term are not eligible for any institutional or federal financial aid. Because each of the online courses earned students one course credit yet spanned both summer terms—an equivalent of a half-credit per term—students were considered ineligible for aid. This technicality was the result of a miscommunication between Duke Summer Session and the Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid.
Gilbert said, however, that the issue has been resolved for the upcoming summer to ensure more students can qualify for aid and enroll in online courses.
“To avoid the problem for 2011, we have scheduled all three of our online course offerings in [Summer] Term 1,” she said. “Thus, any student who is on financial aid and enrolls in one of the online courses will qualify for financial aid consideration.”
She also noted that a new online course, PUBPOL 196S.02: “Writing for Public Policy,” will be offered in addition to the two classes previously available to students—EDUC 168: “Reform in American Classrooms” and ENGLISH 109S: “Writing the Experience: Civic Engagement and Creative Nonfiction.”
The two courses offered online last Summer were Duke’s first foray into online teaching. Kristen Stephens, assistant professor of the practice in Program in Education, said her education course is a “hybrid class” where students and the professor have “synchronous and asynchronous” contact. The course, which students scored a 4.44 out of 5.00 according to ACES evaluations, requires students to log on to eight live virtual sessions with Stephens through Adobe Connect—an online video conferencing software. This is in addition to independent assignments posted on Blackboard.
“A lot of students said they felt more engaged in this class than in classes where they met face-to-face,” she said regarding the unconventional experience her course offers.
Stephens added that her students studied from all over the world—of the nine undergraduates enrolled, one took the course from Durham.
“[Online courses] give [students] more flexibility if they want to go home or if they want to have an internship like a lot of students do in the summer,” she said. “It gives them a little more flexibility to earn Duke credit and be able to take a class wherever they might be.”
As of Tuesday evening, 11 of the three online courses’ 37 seats were filled. Registration remains open through the first three days of summer classes.
Gilbert said enrollment numbers are likely to change, especially for students interested in the public policy course—for which enrollment is currently zero—because many of these students will only register for the class once they have finalized their summer internships.
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