11/22/2024

Hi TOPcast Insiders!

Next month (May 2022) will kick-off the eighth season of TOPcast! (Can you believe it?) As we prepare for this milestone, are there any shifts in emphasis, format, length, frequency, etc. that you wish we would undertake? We would love to hear from you. Please drop us a line at topcast@ucf.edu and let us know. We hope you’ll stay along with us for the whole upcoming season.

- Tom and Kelvin

Leveraging “The Rankings”
As problematic as online program rankings from US News & World Report are (see episode 107), they sometimes open doors. The Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida recently invited Tom and his counterpart from the University of Florida to present short briefings on their institutions’ work in online education because of both being in “the top 10” online programs nationally. The assumptions, discussion, and reactions by these decision-makers to the two presentations is a bit of a case study in talking to the public about our work.

Video Segment from The Florida Channel
Scrub to selection at timecode 2 hours 35 minutes - 3 hours 11 minutes 30 seconds
[Note: Tom’s presentation specifically is from 3:01:37 - 3:10:03]

In this episode Tom and Kelvin unpack what it means for online courses to be “online” and why it matters to students if designers or instructors make decisions that negatively impact this “onlineness.”

• Hidden City Decaf from Zoka Coffee, Bellingham, WA
  

• Course Modalities and Attributes at UCF
• In EDUCAUSE Review: “Students Often Prefer In-Person Classes . . . Until They Don't”
• TOPcast Episode 62: “DL Course Fees and the Funding of Online Education”
  
• TOPcast Episode 97: “Finding the Right Mix of Modalities at Your Institution”
  

• Paul Harvey (“and now you know… the rest of the story”)

• Video Version of this Episode! (Includes “socially distanced” recording by Tom and Kelvin)