The University will be undertaking a master planning process that will document the long range program plans from all Colleges and Departments. It is anticipated that those plans will determine which courses and programs will be offered electronically.

The University is investigating a fee per credit hour charge for hybrid and online courses. These courses require a significantly higher amount of the IT and electronic resources to develop, produce, and offer each semester. Also, they provide convenience and flexibility for students. Currently, a fee per credit hour is planned for implementation in spring 2011.

According to Moodle.org, “Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.” A learning management system or LMS is software that high school teachers, community college instructors, and university professors use to organize course content to partially or fully deliver a course or set of courses online through the World Wide Web.

UL Lafayette recently received approval from its regional accrediting agency, SACS, to offer degree programs through distance learning technologies. The first fully online degree program to be offered by UL is the Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology with a concentration in Health, Promotion, and Wellness. The first students will be admitted to this online program beginning in the spring 2012 semester.

Through a consortium with McNeese State University and Southeastern Louisiana University, UL Lafayette offers a Master of Science in Nursing completely online.

The University has defined five types of electronic courses available from traditional courses that use some electronic documents to aid instruction to fully online courses with no face-to-face component. Read more about the types of courses at reading the course definitions. (Types of Courses)