CROSSING THE CHASM: A BRIDGE BETWEEN CONTENT AND CREDENTIAL Presenter: John F. Ebersole President Excelsior College Albany, NY A Presentation to The 2012 World OER Congress June 20 – 22, 2012

AMERICA’S HIGHER EDUCATION PROBLEM  Growing need  Falling rates of completion  Increasing cost  Shifting focus

ONE RESPONSE  Assess prior work  Match accepted work against approved degree requirements  Independent study using vetted OER materials  Completion of nationally normed assessments  Capstone online course

ELEMENTS OF QUALITY  Faculty vetted OER  Assessments created by a national board of subject matter experts and PhD psychometricians  All assessments administered at secure facilities by a third-party  Required completion of same capstone course as for instructional students (must display knowledge/skill expected of degree holder)

COST FACTOR  All content = free  Assessments = $150 - $200* (usually 3 units of credit)  Annual fees which cover - Advising - Tutorial support - Library access  Tuition for capstone (4 units) = approximately $1,500

COST COMPARISON  Courses required for bachelors degree = 40 (x 3 units for each = 120)  Tuition for Instructional Model = (120 x $355) or $42,600  Costs for Assessment Model (assumes no credit in transfer and a need for all 120 units to complete) = $10,000 or less

ROLE OF FACULTY  Map existing assessments to vetted OER  Create new assessments  Present and evaluate capstone courses  Monitor tutoring and tracking learning outcomes

FUTURE PLANS  Introduce a bachelors of business (July)  Develop assessments for the MIT curriculum in electrical engineering (Sept)  Create interactive simulations to assess decision making and content integration