CourseShare Program 20th Anniversary: Key Data Points & History
Big Ten Academic Alliance: Key Data Points & History
Did you know that students have participated in CourseShare over 6,000 times since 2003? The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) has provided some key data points and history of the program in celebration of its 20th anniversery.
Overall Impact of CourseShare
- Students have participated in CourseShare over 6,000 times since 2003
- Over the past two academic years (22-23, 23-24), the CourseShare Program met
the educational needs of BTAA students nearly 1100 times, providing access to
language courses otherwise unavailable to them - In AY 23-24, all 15 universities of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, had students
benefit from the CourseShare Program - Students take LCTL courses from other Big Ten Academic Alliance universities
without enrolling in or any additional tuition or fees costs to that other
university. - Students stay enrolled and pay tuition to their home university while benefiting
from the greater availability and range of LCTL courses offered across the
consortium.
CourseShare: Collaboration to Meet Student Need for LCTL Courses
- The BTAA CourseShare is celebrating 20 years of collaborating to meet the
needs of students for access to less-commonly-taught languages (LCTLs). - The deans of the liberal arts and sciences colleges of the Big Ten Academic
Alliance universities sponsor and support the CourseShare Program. - CourseShare enables students to study languages such as Vietnamese,
Finnish, Yiddish, Ojibwe and other heritage and indigenous languages - CourseShare provides students with a pathway to learn less-commonly-taught languages, bridging obstacles and creating pathways to language proficiency
- Learning languages is important to understanding other cultures, and essential for the preservation of many indigenous languages and cultures
- In AY 23-24, all 15 consortium universities participated in the CourseShare Program, hosting and receiving courses
- Expansion of blended and asynchronous learning options occurred during
COVID-19 - Students use CourseShare to fulfill language requirements, prepare for study
abroad, and advance heritage language learning - Faculty and institutions report high satisfaction with CourseShare as a solution for LCTL access
History/Program Growth Over Time
- The Big Ten Academic Alliance universities have a long history – dating back to the early 1960’s – of collaborating to meet the needs of students and society for language education.
- Language education collaborations were among the first initiatives of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (nee Committee on Institutional Cooperation) after its creation in 1958.
- 1959: first exploratory studies in foreign language collaborations across member universities
- 1963: Far Eastern Language Institute summer programs began (first at UMich; 2 nd at IU) (continued for a decade)
- 1973: Traveling Language Scholars Program launched
- 1986: Foreign Language Enhancement Program (FLEP) awarded 33 scholarships per year
- 2003: CourseShare pilot launched, shifting to inter-institutional virtual instruction
- 2021-2022: Record year with 215 CourseShare courses, 625 enrolled students, and 278 partnerships among universities
- Life of Program: over 6000 times, students have furthered their education, research, or career goals by participating in the CourseShare Program
- 2024: BTAA Language Education Summit - the liberal arts and sciences deans sponsored this summit to discuss current language education needs & explore collaborative approaches, continuing their long, collaborative commitment to language education and the societal interest it serves.
