THE CATALOG

The winter quarter-spring semester courses:

• American Cybercultures (UC Berkeley)
• Introduction to Astronomy (UC Irvine)
• Pre-Calculus (UC Irvine)
• Introduction to Computer Science for Science, Mathematics and Engineering I (UC Riverside)
• Introduction to Computer Science for Science, Mathematics and Engineering II (UC Riverside)
• Dance (UC Riverside)
• Elementary Spanish (UC Davis)
• Global Climate Change (UC Davis)
• General Psychology (UC Berkeley)
• Introduction to Psychology (UC Irvine)
• Introduction to Statistics (UC Berkeley)

The UC system has given up paper forms and gone digital for cross-campus enrollment — that is, there’s a website now for UC students to register for online classes hosted by other UC campuses.

The Cross-Campus Enrollment site lists 11 classes for winter quarter (or spring semester), all taught by UC faculty. Students receive the same UC credit as they would in face-to-face classes, and pay no extra for the courses.

UC Davis is hosting two of the courses:

• Elementary Spanish, SPA 003V (“V” for virtual) — Completely online, for UC Davis students or those at any other UC campus. Taught by Professor Robert Blake.

• Global Climate Change, SAS 25 (“SAS” for Science and Society”) — Plant sciences professor Arnold Bloom teaches this course in two formats in winter quarter: in person, with traditional lectures, for UC Davis students; and completely online, as SAS 25V, for UC Davis students and those at any other UC campus.

The new registration website is for undergraduates at UC Davis and six other general UC campuses. (San Diego and Santa Barbara are resolving logistical issues and will be added to the program once those are resolved, according to a news release from the UC Office of the President.)

The new site replaces a complex and time-consuming process involving paper forms. (UC Davis students wishing to enroll in SPA 003V or SAS 25 should use the regular, UC Davis enrollment system.)

In launching the Cross-Campus Enrollment website, UC also is making more credit-bearing courses available online — all in accordance with the university's Innovative Learning Technology Initiative, begun this year with $10 million from the state. The money came with conditions: Use it for online education to expand access to high-demand classes and help undergraduate students complete their degrees in a timely manner.

"This initiative lets us take advantage of the most innovative things happening in online education on the UC campuses and make them more broadly accessible to students across the system," UC Provost Aimée Dorr said in the news release.

In addition to expanding access to existing online classes, the Innovative Learning Technology Initiative is funding the development of new courses. Proposals include courses in high-demand subjects with submissions from highly sought-after faculty and innovative collaborations between campuses.

William Jacob, chair of the systemwide Academic Senate, commented: "These are courses that students need, and some are interesting courses that they won't find on their own campus."

As a pilot project, the new registration website is the first step toward an easier process by which UC campuses can share data and instructional costs in a way that fosters cross-campus enrollment.

"This process will show us where the issues are and how to begin addressing them, so that we can make cross-campus enrollment available on a larger scale," Jacob said.

Dave Jones of Dateline UC Davis and Nicole Freeling of the UC Office of the President contributed to this report.

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