After a big gap, which I will try not to allow to repeat, I am back and focused on my day job at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).
My role as the Program Chair of the Information Systems Management (IFSM) Undergraduate Degree program means I have both academic responsibility for the quality of the content of our current 13 courses as well as owning logistical responsibilities associated with staffing and dealing with classroom issues. It is not always easy to spend as much time as I would like on the Academic concerns. Over the last couple of days I spent time assigning faculty for our Spring, 2017 classes which will start in January, 2017. The numbers involved will give you some idea of the logistic challenges.
The UMUC Undergraduate school runs multiple eight week on-line sessions each semester. After we begin the first session of the semester, two to three weeks later the second session starts. We hold four such sessions each Fall and each Spring, and three during the Summer. We cleverly refer to them as OL1, OL2, and OL3 (and OL4 for the fall and spring). The OL stands for on-line. We also hold overlapping hybrid sessions. Hybrid sessions include one three hour in-person class plus the rest is on-line, thus hybrid. We hold two of these in the Fall and Spring, and one in the Summer. We call these US1 and US2. On reflection, I am actually not sure what the US stands for, I’ll need to check. The hybrid classes are held all around the country. Making sure we have enough faculty to staff hybrid locations takes a great deal of time, since in effect all of the on-line courses are one big queue. We also have face-to-face classes, given all in person, in Europe and Asia. While I am responsible for the academic content for them also, I do not have any logistical responsibilities.
To give you a feel for the numbers, at least for me, that are involved. I will take a look at the Fall, 2016 semester currently in progress (we started OL2 today) and then talk about the assignment process for the Spring, 2017 classes which I just, almost, finished. The IFSM numbers are bigger than the number of students majoring in IFSM, approximately 1500, would imply. Since one of our courses is a General Education course which most students at UMUC need to take and a few of our courses are taken by all business majors AND one of our courses supports the health management and nursing majors, we have a lot of non-IFSM students in our classes.
When I started working on the Fall, 2016 semester, the initial course count was 243 classes with 29 hybrid classes. Students register all during the semester and we often have to add courses, since for most of our courses we do not need a classroom, just a faculty member, we are able to be flexible. At present we now have 270 classes with a few added hybrid classes, with over 5600 students registered. I expect to end up with somewhere between 7000 and 8000 students total for the Fall, 2016 semester.
For Spring, 2017, the current count, comparable to the initial count for Fall, is 265 classes, with 43 hybrid classes in 19 different locations. My guess is that the total will end up between 290 and 300 classes. At the current rate of growth, if it continues, our total over the academic year, from Fall, 2016 through Summer, 2017, may total close to or slightly over 20,000 students taking IFSM courses alone. All of this is handled by myself and one, truly wonderful Academic Specialist. We are responsible for hiring, assigning, recovering from classes being added, and/or faculty having unexpected personal issues that cause them to have to drop out at what seems like the last minute and so on.
I am amazed at much we accomplish each semester. While it may not seem like it, in the end it is great fun and there is the continue sense of accomplishment and purpose.
In the coming months while I will point out additional logistical issues, I also will talk about the academic progress and challenges.