Penn State is located in twenty-four communities across Pennsylvania and globally online and its world-class education is available to meet students wherever they are. Under the present administrative structure, nineteen campuses (not including University Park and Penn State’s special-mission campus, the Pennsylvania College of Technology) are overseen by the Senior Vice President for Commonwealth Campuses. Each campus is led by a chancellor who reports to the Senior Vice President.

All nineteen campuses are considered part of Penn State’s Commonwealth campus system, and all offer Penn State baccalaureate degrees. Penn State Behrend and Penn State Harrisburg also offer graduate degrees. Five campuses are considered “college” campuses. Those five are Penn State Abington, Penn State Altoona, Penn State Berks, Penn State Behrend, and Penn State Harrisburg. The other fourteen campuses are referred to collectively as the “University College”.

Penn State has a long history of sharing curriculum, sharing of programs via extended sites, interdisciplinary programs/initiatives, and intercollege programs. The key characteristic of shared programs is the alignment of resources to deliver a single program across multiple campus locations. This distribution of resources has implications for the evaluation, measurement, and support for shared programs. The curriculum of shared programs is no different than a program at a single location. Shared programs require ongoing administrative oversight to ensure that shared programs continue to meet the goals of the program

Students should be informed about shared programs and the unique opportunities these afford. They should be encouraged to take advantage of Penn State’s diverse curricular strengths and resources. Accurate and timely information regarding academic programs and their features will enable students to find the best programs for their individual needs. Support and services aligned with student needs, regardless of their location, will help students in many ways as they navigate their program within Penn State.

Several shared degree programs have been developed in order to provide opportunities to expand the portfolio of academic programs available to students across campus locations. These shared programs have the added benefit of supporting the development of faculty collaboration across the University. Shared programs also provide opportunities to more efficiently utilize resources. More information can be found at the Shared Programs website about the following programs.

1. Biobehavioral Health
2. Business: Accounting
3. Computer Science
4. Corporate Communication
5. Criminal Justice
6. Cyber Security
7. Engineering
8. Health Policy and Administration
9. Information Sciences and Technology
10. Project and Supply Chain Management
11. Rehabilitation and Human Services

A Task Force charged in 2013 identified the following unique features of shared academic programs:

1. Relies on a robust disciplinary community that values collaboration and cooperation across location;
2. Leverages centrally-supported resources to allow for program-level consistencies in course design and faculty development;
3. Provides resident students a broader range of curricular options and richer experiences as they engage with students and faculty from at least one campus outside of their home campus;
4. Combines online, resident, and hybrid courses into a flexible, cohesive, intentional curriculum developed and delivered by faculty with the support of instructional designers;
5. Capitalizes on faculty expertise, specialized knowledge and research interests to deliver programs;
6. Reduces duplication of efforts and is fiscally responsible;
7. Utilizes innovative communication and interaction technologies for shared courses;
8. Relies on common processes and shared governance

The Digital Learning Cooperative is an administrative system that assists campuses and colleges in the sharing of online, hybrid, and remote synchronous courses across Penn State campuses. The system provides the capability to map out multi-term course sharing schedules. Seat reservations can either be shared with all campuses, or they can be limited to specific campus locations. This system reduces the administrative overhead required to coordinate course sharing between campuses.

Courses shared on the Digital Learning Cooperative have been used by campuses to supplement locally offered courses to meet the needs of students enrolled in a wide range of academic majors.

Campuses and colleges have made use of the system in order to:

• Provide students with access to minors or electives within their majors within the first two years of their programs
• Offer course capacity in under-enrolled courses to other locations in order to increase enrollment
• Implement sharing agreements from a single course during a single term to multi-semester or multi-year commitments for courses can be coded into the cooperative
• Identify courses that students need to make progress in their major and avoid a required change of campus location
• Additional (potential) locations can discover the course sharing plans and reach out to develop agreements
• Support individual student needs (via guidance from advisors) so that students can take the best mix of courses for their programs
• Coordinate the delivery of courses as part of programs delivered as a consortia between campuses and colleges

You can log in to the Digital Learning Cooperative and Search by Course, Mode, Scheduling Unit (Campus), or Semester.

The Total Seats column indicates the capacity for the course. To the left of the course name, click the blue circle for more information about the course such as the instructor’s name and mode. Click the button in the Seats Available column to see which campuses have reserved seats. To submit a course to the DLC or request seats for your students, please see the Campus Contacts page.