students. These initial courses set the groundwork for the development of program offerings and thus, the emergence of the following 5 online degree programs:
Bachelor Degree Programs
Criminal Justice
Psychology
Public Administration
Master Degree Program
Special Education
Doctoral Programs
Doctor of Nursing Practice (BSN-DNP)
In July, 2012, faculty members were incentivized by receiving $500.00 for developing and teaching a course that had not been previously offered online at Kentucky State University. As a result, several courses were developed.
While these online programs and courses have served to offer an expanded mode of delivery of Kentucky State University courses for our students, there have been issues that have emerged that need to be addressed.
Currently, some of our first year students who are residents on campus have been enrolled in online courses. Inquiries regarding how this process happened have revealed the following:
Initially, Virtual (V1) courses were created for students who were admitted/enrolled in distance education programs. During Spring semester 2012, the Office of Continuing Distance Education (OCDE) Coordinator and former Registrar opened a second section of 100-level courses online to meet the needs of those students who were not enrolled in distance education programs. These courses were those most in demand by first year students (i.e. ENG 101, HIS 101, MUS 130, SPE 103, etc.) and these sections were coded as Virtual 2 (V2).
When V1 sections (exclusively for distance education students) failed to make enrollment, on-campus or commuter students were permitted to register for V1 sections. The created V2 sections were subsequently closed. No controls or identifying markers that designated courses as online, hybrid or blended were in place during registration that alerted the advisors or students that the course would be offered in an online format. Some classes, reportedly, were listed as in-person and were changed to online by various instructors.
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