Penn State University has joined the nonprofit technology consortium Unizin to expand digital learning on its campus, school officials announced.
The school is the latest major research university to join the organization alongside Colorado State University, Indiana University, Oregon State University, the University of Florida, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"Collaboration is integral to growth at a university," Nick Jones, executive vice president and provost of Penn State University, said in statement. "Penn State is looking forward to contributing to and learning from our new partnership with Unizin."
Unizin was formed earlier this year to enable universities to reach their goals with digital learning, from massive open online courses (MOOCs) to flipped classrooms. The consortium focuses on improving the way educational content is shared by providing a common digital infrastructure.
The consortium will enable Penn state faculty to share lessons plans, syllabi, research and more via content sharing and storage services. Students will benefit from the work being done at Penn state and other institutions as well.
"Joining the Unizin consortium will provide Penn State numerous benefits," Craig Weidemann, vice president for Outreach and vice provost for Online Education, said in a statement. "I am particularly excited about the opportunity to collaborate with other member universities that are among the leaders in online education as we work to improve access, affordability and student success."
Penn State began its tradition of embracing innovative learning technologies and approaches in 1892 when it founded one of the nation's first correspondence courses. Online learning came to the University in 1998, and in the years since, Penn State has embraced such new learning technologies and initiatives as the course management system ANGEL, Penn State World Campus, MOOCs and flipped classrooms.
