Abstract:

Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) is a division of the university that is organized around helping non-traditional students access the resources they need to enhance their lives and careers through education. OC@KU offers individualized, affordable education that integrates technology and personalized service to help learners meet their career, academic, and personal goals. The college’s unique approach is straightforward: Learners create their own pathways to reaching their goals, using a variety of educational resources from inside and outside Kaplan University.

Students at OC@KU create their own path to reaching their goals through a variety of educational materials and courses. This path begins by establishing an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) and completing regular or open online courses, including those available through Kaplan University. OC@KU is a learning concierge service that adds a new dimension to higher education, removing the barriers between career advancement and education.

Featuring monthly subscription-based tuition, OC@KU extends the current open courses offered by Kaplan University to students who are interested in seeking a degree, as well as responds to the increasing accessibility of other open learning resources. The College is geared toward adult learners interested in a highly flexible degree and who have prior learning experience or college-level credits. Students in the College may complete a Bachelor of Science in Professional Studies (BSPR).

The Bachelor of Science in Professional Studies (BSPR) degree at Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) is an interdisciplinary degree program geared toward students with prior college-level learning. The program is designed to develop customized degree pathways known as Individualized Learning Plans (ILPs). The ILP is a roadmap that includes: a career goal statement that enables the student and their faculty advisor to identify potential course assessments and learning options to fulfill the degree requirements; a review of previously earned college credit; an analysis of previous experience that can be evaluated for college credit; potential course assessments to earn credit by examination; and learning required to meet the degree program.

The open degree program provides students with the flexibility of learning through resources that come from within and outside Kaplan University, both prior to and during the course of the degree. Students may receive transfer credit from an accredited institution, portfolio credit, open course credit, credit by exam, or credit for military training or other experiential learning.

The degree program is focused on professional knowledge and skills, project management, problem solving, and strategic planning and culminates in a capstone class with a portfolio project.

OC@KU encourages learners to:
• Assess for their prior learning and college credit.
• Define their learning goal in academic and career terms.
• Identify the remaining credits needed.
• Find the open education resources that, coupled with OC@KU’s support and assessment, will fill the gap toward the degree.

This presentation provides an overview of OC@KU, information on open courses at KU, the Bachelor of Science in Professional Studies degree, Professional Competency Tutorials, and Documenting Experiences for College Credit.

Keywords:

Open learning, MOOCs, professional studies, open degree, experiential learning, prior learning, portfolio, credit by exam.