Determining Carnegie Units: Student Engagement in Online Courses Without a Residential Equivalent
The businesswoman working with the sensor display
Carnegie Units (CU) quantify the time spent by students in and out of class in terms of content engagement. The rule states that for every one hour spent in a face-to-face setting, students spend an additional two hours of study time or engagement with the material). For colleges offering both online and residential courses with the same content, equating the time online students spend with course content is not difficult – the Registrar aligns online courses with their residentially offered matches. However, what does a college do when 100% of its courses are offered online, with no onsite match? What follows is a discussion of how one college ensured and quantified engagement in online courses.
