By Kelly Stuart
IVCC recently received a $10,000 grant through the Illinois Board of Higher Education to become an Illinois Virtual Campus Support Center.
"The overall stipulation of the grant for the college is to offset the cost as well as marketing the educational opportunity to expand services such as advisory, testing services and technical support services," said Melissa Templeton, director of learning technologies.
"Particularly in our district there are no baccalaureate or graduate universities within a convenient area," Templeton said. "Being a support center will allow students to register for courses, receive technological support, library material, advisement services or if they don’t have a computer at home and they need to come on to campus to use a computer. It’s a newer way to baccalaureate or graduate course completion."
The campus has an online directory of distance education courses and programs offered by Illinois colleges and universities. Residents who reside in the IVCC district have access and support to take courses or programs listed in the Illinois Virtual Campus catalog.
According to a press release, IVC will serve as a clearinghouse for courses and programs offered via the Internet or other distance learning media by all Illinois colleges and universities, both public and private, that meet the required academic standards of good practice.
Offered will be graduate programs, baccalaureate degree programs and courses, associate degree programs and courses, short-term certificate programs and noncredit courses and programs designed for employment training and professional development.
IVCC also will provide two English courses and two accounting courses by way of the IVC Web site during the spring semester which can be accessed through www.ivc.illinois.edu.
The grant period for IVC runs Sept. 1, 1999, through the end of August 2000, but there is support from the state to continue the grant, Templeton said.
"We will always be a support center," she said.
IVCC is planning on expanding its Internet courses, according to Templeton, and the college recently joined the Illinois Prairie Internet Consortium, which will make Internet courses more readily available to IVCC students. Music Appreciation will be introduced from Parkland Community College.
The IPIC combines the resources and faculty expertise of Danville Area Community College, Heartland Community College, Illinois Central College, Lake Land College, Parkland, Richland Community College, and IVCC, with other partner colleges to be added.
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