Online Course Sharing

Online Course Sharing is a business process that allows a student enrolled at one IU campus to register for an online class section offered at another IU campus without having to go through intercampus transfer. Course sharing provides a mechanism for leveraging faculty resources and unique classes among participating campuses and supports the offering of classes required for collaborative academic programs among participating campuses.

Shared online classes are “replicated” or copied into the Schedule of Classes of the participating campuses where they are approved course catalog offerings. The campus that a shared class originates from is referred to as the “Campus of Instruction.” Students at a different “Campus of Enrollment” can view and register for a shared class in their Schedule of Classes just as they would any other class. The class notes will tell a student if the class has originated from a campus other than their home Campus of Enrollment.

Shared online courses fall into two categories: (1) courses negotiated to be shared for collaborative online programs, and (2) special requested course shares between 2 or more campuses outside of the negotiated collaborative program lists.

Collaborative Shared Courses - Faculty program committees for all online collaborative degrees, with final approval from respective Deans, negotiate which courses should be shared each semester for their programs. Each semester, IU Online Curriculum Support prepares a unified Collaborative Eligible Class List (ECL) that lists the negotiated shared courses for all collaborative programs for that term. This list is provided to campus registrars well in advance of registration so that all necessary courses are properly scheduled and replicated for students and advisors to see when the schedule of classes opens.

You can find the list of negotiated offerings, and the campuses designated to provide these offerings, in the Collaborative Master Course List dashboard.

Requested Shared Courses - If two or more campuses want to share additional online classes to meet student needs that are not part of an existing collaborative degree, the course can be requested through a special Course Share Agreement. This form can be returned to iuocurr@iu.edu for processing.

The Collaborative degree committees must “freeze” their planned offerings for the upcoming fall semester by February 1st, and for the upcoming Spring and Summer semesters by June 1st. The Fall Collaborative ECL is provided to the registrars in early February, and the Spring/Summer Collaborative ECL is provided to the registrars in early September.

Yes. Per the Shared Course MOA (also called the “IUOCC MOA”) shared class section capacities should not exceed 40 students.

Additionally, each campus of instruction may initially replicate only one section of a given course per session. A campus of instruction may replicate an additional section only after its existing shared sections in that session are full.

No. Shared class sections must meet technical specifications in addition to being approved as part of a collaborative academic program or requested course share:

• The class section must be 100% online (instruction mode = “OA”). In some cases, live synchronous video modalities (instruction modes = “DO” or “HD”) can be shared but these are exceptions (foreign language is a good example).
• The class must be in a standard regular, 1st 8-week, or 2nd 8-week session in fall and spring terms) to avoid problems associated with varying session dates across campuses. In the summer, the class must be in one of the standard online sessions.
• The class cannot require department or instructor consent, due to security/access restrictions which prevent advisors and others from granting consent for classes offered by another campus.
• The class cannot have other specific academic structure issues that can cause problems for students at other campuses, such as variable credit hours.

For all shared online classes, a standard class note identifies which campus is the Campus of Instruction (the campus from which the course originates). The current wording of the standard class note is as follows: This is a 100% online class taught by IU [campus name]. No on-campus class meetings are required. A distance education fee will apply; check your campus bursar website for more information. Textbook purchases may be made through your home campus bookstore.

All shared classes that are part of a collaborative academic program will also contain the following standard class note: This class is offered as part of a collaborative academic program. Please consult with your advisor to ensure this class will count toward your degree requirements.

Yes. If two or more campuses want to share additional online classes for students that are not part of an existing collaborative degree, the course can be requested through a special Course Share Agreement. This form can be returned to iuocurr@iu.edu for processing.

You can find the list of negotiated offerings, and the campuses designated to provide these offerings, in the Collaborative Master Course List dashboard. Keep in mind these are planned courses. Sometimes sections are added, canceled, or moved to a different campus of instruction based on student demand during registration.

Shared class sections for the currently enrolling term (with a COI/COE crosswalk) can be viewed in this Current Shared Course Sections tableau view. This view updates daily.

Shared class sections for prior terms (with a COI/COE crosswalk) can be viewed in this Online Course Sharing Dashboard. This dashboard is updated once each semester after official census passes.