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WATERLOO, Ont. (CUP) — The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance has put forth their vision for the province’s proposed online university.

The Ontario Online Institute, a commitment made by the provincial government earlier this year, is still in development stages, but will help broaden access to post-secondary education.

“Not much definition was given on what [the Ontario Online Institute] would be. OUSA got together to determine what it should look like. We have representatives from each of our schools to develop ideas for policy and at the March general assembly we came together to brain storm ideas for what we wanted to see. We wanted to be part of the conversation,” said Meaghan Coker, OUSA president.

The recommendations are based off analysis of different online education models both in Canada and abroad, Coker explained.

In particular, they distinguish between consortium models and an integrated, independent, centralized model.

The former is created by the co-operation of different participating institutions with a decentralized operating structure for admissions and student support programs and the latter operates in a centralized structure separate from the individual universities.

“We went with a consortium model because of our tremendous success with the infrastructure we currently have. It would be a bit of a loss to start from scratch, instead of capitalizing on what we have now,” said Coker.

“Specifically we looked at the Open University in Australia which capitalizes on the success of a conglomerate of universities with independent policy such as admissions, institutional support.”

There will be challenges for the preferred model to gain acceptance, she said. The largest would be getting support from different universities to build legitimacy and give up a degree of independence.

“Certain universities have an elite status and reputation, which makes them want to keep them separate. It is going to take dedication from the different universities to admit they are better as a collective … thus far, response has been positive, but ultimately universities are competitors, so it is a challenge,” explained Coker.

The creation of an adequate rural broadband network is another obstacle in the success on an online university.

But, OUSA is confident that the program itself will provide incentive to further develop the network once it has support from students.

The key factor for long-term viability of the Ontario Online Institute is to ensure quality, said Coker.

“For students that did not have a chance to do the bricks and mortar education, to have a series of bridging programs to allow students to finish a degree in the online institute, this will open up the entire province to benefit from this program,” she said.

SIDEBAR: Other key recommendations

• HST exemption for ebooks to increase affordability

• Cost savings passed on to students, with tuition not exceeding those for traditional courses

• Implementation of high entrance standards to preserve quality

• Continued investment in rural broadband access

• Make OSAP accessible to part-time students and provide realistic funding for computers and Internet access

• Access to comprehensive 24-hour IT support, along with academic support such as counsellors and academic advisors

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