San Jacinto College Online, the College’s newest campus, will launch in fall 2025.
The virtual campus represents a major shift in how the College will support online students, offering a streamlined, consistent learning experience across all virtual courses.
“Initially, the College explored launching the virtual campus in a single phase,” Dr. Ken Tidwell, chief officer for online learning, said. “However, following an almost two-year internal study of student enrollment trends and initial launch planning in summer 2024, it became clear that the scale of change required more planning and preparation.”
A separate work group made up of instructional leaders, faculty, staff, and district-wide administrators explored additional plans for launch. Ultimately, the group recommended a phased approach rather than a one-time launch plan to the College’s Strategic Leadership Team. As a result, the College adopted the phased approach to the launch.
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New approach improves efficiency
With the new phased plan, the initial launch timeline remains unchanged, and the College will offer 60 certificates and degrees fully online.
The plan aims to improve the student experience significantly, addressing several common challenges that current online students face. One of the issues Tidwell cited was that many online students are unsure which campus their courses are offered through or whom to contact for assistance. This can lead to confusion and unnecessary delays.
“We had a situation this past term when a student didn’t realize that they accidentally enrolled in an 8-week course,” Tidwell said. “After realizing it, the student tried to get help at the campus they were familiar with but was told to contact another campus. When calling, they got voicemail. Eventually, the student was routed to San Jac Online, but by then, a lot of time and energy had been wasted. Going to San Jac Online first would have resulted in a more seamless experience.”
After its full implementation across all phases, San Jac Online will provide a single point of contact for students and College staff, allowing them to get the guidance they need faster without being bounced between multiple campuses.
Course options
A key aspect of the virtual campus will be consistency in online course offerings. All sections of a particular online course will feature aligned textbooks and a consistent basic course design. Tidwell explained this will allow students to focus on learning the material rather than struggling to navigate different course set-ups.
“From an academic standpoint, one of the goals of the new campus is to ensure that all sections of a specific online course title have an aligned textbook and a consistent learning management system course design, combining the strengths of our faculty expertise with the best practices in instructional design,” Tidwell said. “Research has shown these positively impact online learner success at the course level.”
Achieving the goals
One goal of San Jac Online is to simplify the process.
Students enrolled online may also take on-campus courses, giving them flexibility in how they learn.
For Tidwell, the most important goal of San Jac Online is clear — student success.
“Our goal in launching San Jac Online is to ensure the College strategically and operationally supports our faculty and staff who are working daily to meet the needs of students choosing online learning to achieve their goals,” he said
Visit https://m.sanjac.edu/about/news/2024/tidwell-oversees-launch-of-san-jac-online-campus to learn more about San Jac online
By Neesha Hosein
