Millions of California students and teachers will gain free access to UC quality online college prep courses and online lessons through a new partnership between University of California College Prep (UCCP) and the K-12 High Speed Network, a high-speed, high-bandwidth statewide network that reaches over five million California students and educators.
UC College Prep, a statewide program of the University of California based at UC Santa Cruz, will house its state- and College Board-approved online courses and digital lessons on the K-12 network's servers so that California high schools can easily pull down the courses to teach online at no cost. The network's Calaxy web site includes a wealth of resources such as free access to a learning management system needed to teach online credit-bearing courses. Rather than acquiring and maintaining servers and technology to instruct the courses, schools can access the courses and content through the network.
Automatic access to UC College Prep courses on the network will be available later this year. UC College Prep and K-12 High Speed Network are currently building a content bank and other features for a piloted implementation that will precede the statewide implementation of the courses. In the meantime, schools and school districts may license courses directly from UC College Prep and use the courses independently.
"This partnership gives UC College Prep a central distribution point to help a greater number of students become college eligible or enhance their academic achievement," said Rafael Granados, executive director of UC College Prep. "We look forward to contributing new content to the network and expanding the partnership. This is a perfect blending of quality online content with a sophisticated system and ready tools to make using that content workable for any California school."
The agreement will make over $8 million worth of high-quality, interactive online courses and lessons developed by UC available to the entire state through one centralized portal. Another $5 million worth of online course content will be added to the network in the next two years. Concurrently, UC College Prep will construct a special Web portal on the network offering sophisticated math lessons, including algebra and California High School Exit Examination resources, to serve the state's algebra and math development needs. UC College Prep's goal is to eventually provide the network with the entire college prep curriculum.
"We are excited to be working with UCCP in meeting the needs of schools across California," said Todd Finnell, chief executive officer of the K12HSN. "The ability to leverage the resources of each organization and coordinate our services will ensure students in all areas of the state have access to compelling content and learning opportunities."
The two programs will also collaborate on a pilot to reach rural and underserved schools so students and teachers in dire need of Advanced Placement and college prep courses may access UC College Prep's approved courses through the network. Both organizations are dedicated to providing access to materials through technology for the advancement of students everywhere in California with a special emphasis on underserved students.
Founded in 1999, UC College Prep develops and distributes UC-approved online Advanced Placement and other college prep courses for use by California teachers and students. Its courses are considered some of the highest quality multimedia courses in the world. Last year, over 83,000 California students used UCCP's online content and over 153,000 students across the world accessed UC online course content. For more information on UC College Prep, visit www.uccp.org.
The California K-12 High Speed Network enables educators, students and staff across the state to have access to a reliable high-speed network with the capacity to deliver high-quality online resources to support teaching and learning and promote academic achievement. K12HSN is a state program funded by the California Department of Education. For more information on K12HSN, visit www.k12hsn.org.
For more information, please contact:
Curt Anderson
Associate Director of Partnerships and Communications
University of California College Prep
2155 Delaware Avenue, Suite 100
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
phone: 831-460-3086
email: curt@uccp.org
web: www.uccp.org
