2023-106 University of California

Recommendations to University of California

Recommendation 1

To promote practices that will mitigate the risks of using OPMs, the Office of the President should, with input from relevant stakeholders, such as extension unit deans and using the guidance provided by WASC, create guidance by June 2025 for UC’s use of OPMs. The guidance should define the OPMs to which it applies and, at a minimum, establish the following expectations:

• Campuses should ensure a minimum level of transparency about an OPM’s involvement in education programs, including requiring accurate public-facing website descriptions of the services an OPM provides and requiring the publication of the names and qualifications of OPM-paid instructors on public-facing websites, when applicable. This guidance should establish expectations for the minimum level of review that campuses should perform of websites and other marketing or recruiting materials for their programs that involve an OPM.

Recommendation 2

To promote practices that will mitigate the risks of using OPMs, the Office of the President should, with input from relevant stakeholders, such as extension unit deans and using the guidance provided by WASC, create guidance by June 2025 for UC’s use of OPMs. The guidance should define the OPMs to which it applies and, at a minimum, establish the following expectations:

• Campuses should provide adequate oversight of OPMs that provide instruction on behalf of UC and the steps the campuses should take to review, approve, and evaluate OPM-created courses and OPM-provided instructors. The guidance should specifically address collecting student evaluations of OPM courses and should establish expectations for campuses’ reviews of those evaluations following each academic term.

Recommendation 3

To better protect prospective students from recruiting practices that are not in their best interests, the Office of the President should expand its existing guidance on incentive compensation by June 2025 to address graduate and continuing education students. The expanded guidance should describe that UC discourages tuition revenue sharing or bonus payments to entities that recruit graduate or continuing education students, as it does for undergraduate students. Further, the expanded guidance should describe the safeguards that campuses should adopt to mitigate the risks posed to students and to better ensure UC’s compliance with federal law.

Recommendations to UC Berkeley

Recommendation 4

To provide transparency to prospective students regarding course instruction, by June 2025, UC Berkeley should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating or amending its policies or processes to require that course descriptions and program websites include the following:

• Disclosure of the partnership between an OPM and the campus.
• A description of the OPM’s roles, particularly when the OPM provides instruction.
• Identification of OPM instructors as well as their training and experience.
• Disclosure of the amounts of any nonrefundable deposits or fees.

Recommendation 5

To ensure that it does not provide misleading information on their websites, by June 2025, UC Berkeley should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating and implementing a policy to review, on no less than an annual basis, the program websites associated with courses that OPMs support to ensure that the information provided is current and accurate. UC Berkeley should formally document these reviews and track any needed or subsequent changes.

Recommendation 6

To ensure that Berkeley Extension receives the full amounts owed to the campus according to the terms of its OPM contracts, by June 2025, Berkeley Extension should establish a process to verify that the revenue amounts received from each OPM are accurate.

Recommendations to UC Davis

Recommendation 7

To provide transparency to prospective students regarding course instruction, by June 2025, UC Davis should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating or amending its policies or processes to require that course descriptions and program websites include the following:

• Disclosure of the partnership between an OPM and the campus.
• A description of the OPM’s roles, particularly when the OPM provides instruction.
• Identification of OPM instructors as well as their training and experience.
• Disclosure of the amounts of any nonrefundable deposits or fees.

Recommendation 8

To ensure that it does not provide misleading information on their websites, by June 2025, UC Davis should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating and implementing a policy to review, on no less than an annual basis, the program websites associated with courses that OPMs support to ensure that the information provided is current and accurate. UC Davis should formally document these reviews and track any needed or subsequent changes.

Recommendations to UC Los Angeles

Recommendation 9

To provide transparency to prospective students regarding course instruction, by June 2025, UCLA should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating or amending its policies or processes to require that course descriptions and program websites include the following:

• Disclosure of the partnership between an OPM and the campus.
• A description of the OPM’s roles, particularly when the OPM provides instruction.
• Identification of OPM instructors as well as their training and experience.
• Disclosure of the amounts of any nonrefundable deposits or fees.

Recommendation 10

To ensure that it does not provide misleading information on their websites, by June 2025, UCLA should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating and implementing a policy to review, on no less than an annual basis, the program websites associated with courses that OPMs support to ensure that the information provided is current and accurate. UCLA should formally document these reviews and track any needed or subsequent changes.

Recommendation 11

To better monitor how well the OPMs are serving students, by June 2025, UCLA Extension should establish and implement a policy to review and assess the results of OPM-administered student course evaluations after each academic term.

Recommendation to UC San Diego

Recommendation 12

To provide transparency to prospective students regarding course instruction, by June 2025, UC San Diego should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating or amending its policies or processes to require that course descriptions and program websites include the following:

• Disclosure of the partnership between an OPM and the campus.
• A description of the OPM’s roles, particularly when the OPM provides instruction.
• Identification of OPM instructors as well as their training and experience.
• Disclosure of the amounts of any nonrefundable deposits or fees.

Recommendation 13

To ensure that it does not provide misleading information on their websites, by June 2025, UC San Diego should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating and implementing a policy to review, on no less than an annual basis, the program websites associated with courses that OPMs support to ensure that the information provided is current and accurate. UC San Diego should formally document these reviews and track any needed or subsequent changes.

Recommendation 14

To prevent prospective students from being misled about the value of OPM-provided courses, by June 2025, UC San Diego should develop fact sheets that list key information for each course or program, such as whether the course provides a benefit for admission to another campus degree program.

Recommendation 15

To prevent prospective students from being misled about the value of OPM-provided courses, by June 2025, UC San Diego should request that its Academic Senate assess whether the campus should continue to use the term MicroMasters.

Recommendation 16

To comply with Academic Senate rules and its own policies regarding course and instructor approvals, by June 2025, San Diego Extension should establish a process to document all OPM course and instructor approvals.

Recommendation to UC Santa Barbara

Recommendation 17

To provide transparency to prospective students regarding course instruction, by June 2025, UC Santa Barbara should engage with relevant stakeholders regarding creating or amending its policies or processes to require that course descriptions and program websites include the following:

• Disclosure of the partnership between an OPM and the campus.
• A description of the OPM’s roles, particularly when the OPM provides instruction.
• Identification of OPM instructors as well as their training and experience.
• Disclosure of the amounts of any nonrefundable deposits or fees.