UMUC’s Remote-Access Labs: The Next Generation of Online Learning

Don Goff

By Chip Cassano

Over the past decade, UMUC has worked to perfect its delivery of online coursework. The results—and public response—have been spectacular, and online enrollments have grown exponentially to about 100,000 annually.

Rather than rest on its laurels, though, UMUC is now aggressively pursuing what Don Goff, chair of Information and Telecommunications Studies, calls the “next generation” of online delivery—establishing online computer “laboratories” that students can access from a distance.

“Previously, online ‘labs’ were simulations or animations that didn’t offer students the opportunity to truly experiment, to find out what works and what doesn’t,” said Goff. “In these remote-access labs, students can access real, hands-on applications, and it doesn’t even require a broadband connection. Educationally speaking, it’s a quantum leap.”

Equally important is the fact that students have the opportunity to use the latest technologies from a variety of vendors, and here, UMUC has had the generous support of industry icons like Cisco Systems, Oracle, Microsoft, Computer Associates, and others, who have provided the University with free or deeply discounted, cutting-edge hardware and software systems that are the building blocks of industries like data communication, systems administration, network security, computer forensics, and more.

It is, said Goff, the consummate win-win arrangement: Students have access to cutting-edge technology; the workforce benefits from graduates who already have hands-on experience with that cutting-edge technology; and vendors ensure that graduates enter the workforce as competent users of their products.

“The first remote-access lab—the database laboratory—went online in the fall of 2001,” said Goff. “The second—the network systems and security laboratory—became available to students in 2003, allowing them to develop and implement access lists, conduct configuration management, balance traffic loads, and perform other network security functions—all online.”

The response has been immediate and enthusiastic. Goff estimates that 300 students in eight courses regularly use the database laboratory, and another 300 from three courses use the network systems and security laboratory. More are sure to follow.