Blended programs are programs that consist of online courses, resident, and/or hybrid courses (i.e., a combination of two or more of these formats). Courses in blended programs are generally not themselves a mixture of online and resident instruction, but are individually either resident, online, or hybrid. At Penn State, such programs are called Blended Programs.

Cooperative agreements are formal agreements across colleges or campuses that outline a level of cooperation across the colleges or campuses. These are agreements that are formalized via written agreement regarding the delivery of courses or programs across campus or college boundaries. Types of agreements may include: a group coordinated schedule of course offerings that will be shared among campuses or colleges, agreements to develop courses that are needed to provide students with a concentration or minor without a change of campus, common support or shared resources to enable new capabilities (extended helpdesk hours, lab resources, etc).

Extended programs typically involve special circumstances, such as specialized licensing and/or accreditation requirements. In these cases, a single college may offer its programs by extending their availability to additional campuses. In this arrangement, only the “extending” college has the authority to award the program degree, although the degree may be delivered at multiple campuses.

There are four types of Intercollege Undergraduate Programs as defined at [website not found].

At the graduate level, intercollege degrees are a common type of collaboration between colleges. When “faculty members from departments in two or more colleges collaborate in offering a graduate major, the program is designated as an intercollege graduate degree program. A committee of graduate faculty members approved by the Graduate School is responsible for administering the program under a program chair”

Shared Programs, as defined by the Academic Administrative Policies and Procedure Manual, include “partnerships and extended programs.” Joint partnerships or consortia are types of shared programs, in which, in addition to the original sponsoring college, one or more additional colleges are also awarded authority to offer the existing program. The definition further describes “a consortium of Penn State colleges and/or campuses to integrate faculty, administrative, fiscal, and physical resources to deliver a single academic program. Consortium degree authorization and delivery is based upon the sum of consortium resources across members, rather than the presence of all necessary elements within a single campus or academic unit”.

That which does not necessarily occur during the same time period. In e-learning, an asynchronous activity allows students to work during times of their own choosing, within limits. Thus, a discussion might occur during an entire week, with students participating in the discussion at different times. A threaded discussion is asynchronous.

That which occurs during the same time period. A synchronous activity is one in which the students and instructor are all engaged at the same time. For example, in e-learning courses this would include activities such as chats, and live Zoom sessions.

Various areas within Penn State provide a definition of the term “hybrid course” (e.g. Undergraduate Advising Handbook, Registrar, and WebLearning @ Penn State). While each definition varies somewhat, the following from WebLearning@Penn State encompasses the main points:

Courses that combine Web and traditional face-to-face classroom instruction. Hybrid courses are organized to reduce or replace the number of required face-to- face class sessions in order to improve effectiveness and flexibility for instructors and students and/or to achieve other efficiencies. Hybrid courses reduce by approximately 40% or more of the number of required classroom sessions, although some classroom sessions are required.

Web courses are offered through both the resident instruction and the World Campus delivery systems. Web courses do not meet in traditional classrooms, with the possible exception of scheduled examinations. A Web course may be offered by both resident instruction and the World Campus with identical course content. However, a student enrolled in a resident-instruction Web course may be expected to be on campus for a classroom experience (e.g., to take an exam) while a student enrolled in a World Campus course will not be required to be on campus for any part of the course.