Fast Facts
- Rize-led courses are taught asynchronously
Students can engage with the material at any time, so they can integrate Rize courses easily with their schedule. Rize instructors also offer live online office hours, so students can engage with them directly in real time.
- Students from many Rize institutions may participate in any given course
With participation structured this way, UP students have an even broader network of classmates with unique perspectives and insights.
- Courses meet UP standards for quality
There is a rigorous process in place that begins with courses designed by subject-matter experts in partnership with an instructional design team. Courses are then subject to faculty review at numerous consortium colleges. Once courses are approved and introduced, evaluations are gathered every semester – as is student feedback – to ensure continuous improvement.
- Coursework expectations are well-defined
Rize 3-credit-hour courses require approximately nine hours of work per week, where at least three of those hours are contact hours represented by instructor-student interaction through synchronous online classes. Engagement includes recorded video review, mediated discussion boards, question forums, messaging, and other distance instructor interaction.
- Textbooks and materials selected with student affordability in mind
Rize courses stipulate that the lowest-cost materials possible should be used that still achieve strong student outcomes. This is done to ensure that needlessly expensive course materials are not assigned to students when an Open Education Resource or lower-cost materials would yield the same (or better) learning outcomes.
- Rize courses prioritize projects over exams – for several reasons
Assessing advanced learning outcomes is better done via richer assignments; requiring original work helps ensure academic integrity; properly constructed project work improves engagement; and projects have the potential to become impactful parts of a student’s portfolio when entering the job market.
