Local Business Notes: UIS is ‘committed to downtown’

University of Illinois Springfield Chancellor Susan Koch, who attended Land of Lincoln Economic Development Corporation CEO Eric Berglund’s introduction last week, said the university is “committed to downtown,” whether it’s on the vacant YWCA block or in another location.

As my colleague Crystal Thomas reported July 11, Mayor Jim Langfelder is pushing back plans for the 2.35-acre Y-block until at least September to see what opportunities the state budget might bring for universities that possibly would want to have a presence on the block.

For UIS, the answer may be an innovation hub as part of the Discovery Partners Institute. The Chicago-based, University of Illinois system-led institute is partnering with the Illinois Innovation Network and is looking to have innovation hubs throughout the state.

Koch said UIS should receive guidelines by mid-August and will hopefully submit a proposal for a hub by the end of September.

“Not within the next two weeks, but things are absolutely moving forward relatively quickly,” Koch said.

If the university does receive an innovation hub, it could be borne out of an expanded Innovate Springfield. The business incubator, now housed across the street from the Old State Capitol, has a partnership with UIS but would likely be completely turned over to the university under that scenario.

This article appeared in the State Journal-Register on July 22, 2018.

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UIS supporting runners who are crossing the country for charity

Nineteen students left San Francisco on June 17 on a 4,000-plus mile cross-country run to Baltimore. They slept in beds for the first time Thursday night.

The University of Illinois Springfield is currently home base for Team Baltimore, a group of college-aged runners who are raising money for young adults diagnosed with cancer. They are running in a relay-style format across the country in a program called 4K for Cancer. Runners are between the ages of 18 and 25. Three or four run at a time and each averages 12-14 miles per day.

Team Baltimore departed Hannibal, Missouri for Springfield on Thursday morning. En route, it encountered stormy weather. The weather delay forced them to shuttle to a location, they then ran the rest of the way. Around 3 p.m., two male and two female runners made their way onto the UIS campus via W. Lake Shore Dr. They met the rest of the team at a residence hall. After unpacking their belongings from support vans, some runners snacked and lounged, while others ran around campus putting in the miles they were unable to get in earlier due to the weather.

UIS is providing Team Baltimore with complimentary lodging and laundry service and has offered meals. The Springfield Road Runners Club is also providing food.

This article appeared in the State Journal-Register on July 20, 2018.

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Keeping Online Courses Fresh: Valuable, but Costly

Mary Niemiec, associate vice president for distance education at the University of Nebraska, hears all the time from faculty members and others who believe online courses must cost less to produce than face-to-face classes because they can be left untouched after launch. She wants everyone who still believes that to understand why they’re wrong.

“That’s like telling a faculty member, once you develop a syllabus, don’t worry about updating it,” Niemiec said.

At the risk of a tortured analogy, maintaining online courses is like raising children: they need consistent care and attention, and plenty of grooming and upgrading as they mature. Within a few years, depending on the complexity of the course and the capacity of the institution, the cost of those efforts can outstrip the original launch cost. (To be clear, in this article we're talking about the cost of producing a course, as opposed to the price charged to take it.) Online program administrators and observers believe those investments are just as essential as the initial one -- but they don’t often come up in conversations about the cost of online production.

Some factors out of an institution’s control play a role in cost as well. Turnover among administrators or faculty members involved in online course development can lead to longer and more costly processes for keeping courses in shape, according to Vickie Cook, executive director of the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the Univeristy of Illinois Springfield.

Increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity infrastructure can also drive up costs for online courses as they grow, Cook said.

This article appeared in Inside Higher Ed on July 18, 2018.

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