As a 67-year-old retiree, Amy Lendian wants you to know it’s never too late. Never too late to start over; to go for your dream career; to earn your college degree.

When the UCF Online history student assumes her spot at the console at Kennedy Space Center to lead the facility systems engineers for the upcoming historic Artemis II launch, that affirmation will echo within her once more.

“I always believed in myself and felt that I could do this,” she says. “It really is never too late.”

Turning a Setback Into a Comeback

Lendian spent the majority of her adult life building her career as a fire protection engineer, helping design sprinkler systems and other fire safety infrastructure.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. The construction industry came to a screeching halt. In her 60s, she suddenly faced unemployment.

“I thought, ‘Who is going to want to hire me in my 60s?’ ” she says. “But I made it my job to find a job. And not just any job. I set out for my dream job in the aerospace industry.”

She logged in every day on her home computer to research job listings, dressed as if she was headed to an office. She sought career counseling. She joined virtual seminars to learn new software and online tools she knew she’d need to master if she wanted to break into the field. She learned how to rework her resume to leverage her relevant skills.

Her strategy and persistence paid off. She got a call back for a fire protection systems engineer position on base at Kennedy Space Center.

Finding Her Place in Space

On her first day at KSC, she attended a briefing where they discussed etiquette while serving on the console. She says it took her a moment to process what she was hearing.

“I stayed up to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I have a photo of myself as a kid standing in front of an Apollo rocket. And you’re saying you want me to be on the console during a launch?!” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m here. I arrived.’ ”

Lendian served on the console for the Artemis I launch in November 2022.

Although she has since retired from her formal position with KSC and moved to Chicago, she is still employed as a part-time consultant and will be there again for Artemis II managing the fire protection systems on the launchpad.

Finishing What She Started

Her late-stage career change inspired her to consider other dreams she had yet to realize. A big one has been nearly 50 years in the making.

Lendian was 19 years old when she attempted college the first time. She enrolled in the University of South Florida’s electrical engineering program in the late 1970s. But after three years, she stopped her studies because she got married and needed to support her new family.

In 2021, she decided to resuscitate her dream of a college degree. She transferred her old credits into the program at Eastern Florida State College, earned her associate’s degree and looked to enroll in one of UCF Online’s degree programs so she could manage school with her full-time job.

The history degree she is working toward is affiliated with one of the top online institutions. UCF ranks No. 6 for Online Bachelor’s Programs nationally according to the U.S. News & World Report.

“I want that bachelor’s degree,” Lendian says. “I am doing this for me. I am going to do something that I love (history). And I am going to graduate.”

“There has always been a need for open educational resources in higher education,” says Nicole Lapeyrouse, a UCF chemistry professor and 2023 Affordable Instructional Materials (AIM) High Impact Award winner. “By adopting or creating OER, you are able to further support students by making your courses more affordable and helping reduce the financial burden on students.”

Isabella Griffin, a student in Lapeyrouse’s Chemistry Fundamentals I course, confirms those benefits.

“The free textbook has helped ease the financial burden associated with being a college student.,” she says. “Sometimes, high prices prevent students from having textbook access — to the detriment of student learning. I greatly appreciate the free and open access to [the eBook]. It has increased my ability to access relevant and useful resources related to class.”

“From my own personal experience with not always having access to affordable resources,” says Lapeyrouse, “I wanted to prevent students from having to make a tough call on [whether to] buy the required resources or pay a bill.”

According to the 2022 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey conducted by Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC), 53% of students from Florida’s public higher education institutions indicated they did not purchase a required textbook for financial reasons. Forty-four percent took fewer courses. Thirty-eight percent did not register for a specific course. And 24% dropped a course due to the high cost of textbooks.

During the Fall 2022 semester, at least 61 UCF faculty members provided their required course materials at no cost to students through��the use of OER. These efforts resulted in an estimated combined savings of $1,439,063.64��for 12,306 students enrolled in 99 course sections across four colleges and 12 departments. Since the Fall 2020 semester, roughly 18% of UCF students took a course offering OER — a 9% increase.

“We are grateful to our faculty who go the extra distance to make student course materials affordable,” says Michael D. Johnson, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “The success of our students is paramount, and these efforts are being felt university-wide.”

The growth of OER across UCF has been fueled by a mixture of highly-motivated teams situated within UCF Digital Learning, UCF Libraries, Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL), Student Government, registered student organizations, such as Wiki Knights, and most importantly, the faculty units intent on delivering free, openly-licensed course materials to replace costly versions of the same or very similar content being sold on the free market.

“The work that Nicole and her colleagues are doing on OER is remarkable in several aspects,” says Department of Chemistry Chair Michael Hampton. “These OER materials are readily available at any time, at no charge, and can be used as a library for students to review and reinforce their studies. Additionally, faculty, including Nicole and her colleagues, are preparing these materials free of charge — [an example of] action arising from dedication.”

Data, such as those reported in the FLVC survey, continue to motivate UCF faculty, staff and students to devise actionable plans for creating viable open solutions that promote equitable access to customizable, shareable and impactful course materials.

This year, Student Government�� has been a major talking point at recent meetings with high-level administration, and units across campus have already offered support to amplify student voices on this topic.

The FCTL, for example, expressed a willingness to deliver select communications about open education and shared ideas for a tabling opportunity to increase faculty awareness. Registered student organization Florida PIRG Students at ��AV is also back in swing and working with the to help bring textbook affordability to the forefront.

Additionally, the UCF Libraries continues to offer support to the open education initiative by collaborating during bi-weekly team meetings, supporting Wiki Knights tabling events and generally helping advance strategic aspects of the OER movement.

Hanson, who has been teaching Judaic studies at UCF since the early ‘90s, became interested in the Middle East while studying history as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“I was wanting to research the roots of Western thought and culture, way back to the cradle of civilization,” Hanson says. “As a senior, I hopped on a plane and landed in Jerusalem to study ancient civilizations. I focused on the ancient land of Israel because it also happens to be the cradle of the three western belief systems — Judaism, Christianity, Islam are all out of the Middle East.”

After learning Hebrew and completing a master’s degree in television and intercultural communication and a doctorate in Judaic studies, Hanson worked at an American TV station based in southern Lebanon in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War before coming to UCF.

“I commuted over a hostile border every day to broadcast family-oriented television into a war zone,” he says. “We showed a lot of American westerns and championship wrestling, but when anything major happened we had to go into news-gathering mode.”

Hanson credits his on-camera work and travels to the Middle East with inspiring immersive lessons for his online courses. But he wasn’t always keen on the idea of teaching virtually.

Judaic studies is a niche program that students would often struggle to fit into their class schedule due to conflicts with their required courses, Hanson says. So began the demand for online courses in the program, and the need for him to complete training through , a support unit that advances online teaching and learning.

“I didn’t want to go this direction at all because I take my energy from an audience, that being the students.” — Ken Hanson, Ů��AV professor

“I didn’t want to go this direction at all because I take my energy from an audience, that being the students,” he says. “I developed a lot of interactive presentations, anything and everything to make a class pop, but I did it because we wanted our courses to be more accessible to the students.”

Near the end of Hanson’s training in 2015, the CDL video team presented its��production studio and he immediately recognized he could put his TV past to use to develop content that could still make his courses “pop.”

“My first semester/course teaching online was the History of the Holocaust,” he says. “My instructional designer suggested I go over and talk to the CDL video team because I was almost in tears about how I could interface with my students.”

Hanson worked with CDL’s video team to create a concept that repackaged his 90-minute lectures into��10 to 20-minute segments while placing him at historic and archaeological sites. Eventually, he began making the productions more theatric — borrowing from his previous theatrical training — to dress up as different characters and use varying dialects for videos across five of his courses.

“Just because I’m a professor doesn’t mean I can’t play act and do theatrics anymore,” he says. “Rather than just reciting a passage from the prophet Isaiah, I’ll dress up as him and recite it in Hebrew and use subtitles so students can hear the ancient language vocalized. In that sense it’s better than a live lecture because we can do things we can’t do in the classroom.”

When UCF transitioned to fully remote learning last March due to the coronavirus, Hanson was already a step ahead of faculty who hadn’t had the opportunity or training to develop immersive content that would be needed to keep students engaged for the next year.

“In that sense it’s better than a live lecture because we can do things we can’t do in the classroom.” — Ken Hanson, Ů��AV professor

“What the pandemic has done is shown how important this technology is,” he says. “We already knew this was the future, so for me teaching during the pandemic was no problem at all. But the pandemic has really highlighted the importance of what CDL is doing.”

With more than 125 TV segments under his belt, and no plans to stop any time soon, creating this type of content for his courses has also proved beneficial for CDL.

“We’ve worked together for so long that both our skill sets have evolved,” says Aaron Hose, media production manager and lead video producer for CDL’s video team. “Ken��has become a better writer, actor and on-screen presenter. Our video producers have improved as editors and compositors. We can now deliver his content more streamlined than before. We’ve found this great ‘sweet spot’ now.”

Hanson’s efforts to go the extra mile in his online courses have paid off as he earned the Chuck D. Dziuban Award for Excellence in Online Teaching in 2017.

“Ken has long been a proponent of pushing the envelope with student engagement through video,” says Roslyn Miller, an instructional designer at CDL. “He recently began using a new technology that’s often used in performing-arts education to enhance student interaction with his dramatized video presentations so they’ll engage even more with the content, each other, and him while enjoying learning.”

Not only are students having fun with the lessons, they’re retaining them better too, which Hanson says, sometimes was a struggle for them during in-person courses.

“There are serious learning advantages to this,” he says. “When you lecture, the amount that is retained by students is maybe 20% and [many] students these days are not taking notes, so you hope they remember something. Here I think I’ve solved this because every week I give them a TV show to watch and they take a quiz on it at the end. So, they’re watching and even re-watching because they have that ability.”

“It’s all about teaching and enhancing learning to the best of your ability, and resources here at UCF, like CDL, bring that into amazing focus.” — Ken Hanson, Ů��AV professor

He also worked with UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy in 2018 to develop a video game for his Biblical Archaeology course. Through the game students explore an underground cavern and examine pottery fragments, which Hanson says is a big part of the course that was tough to teach online before this development. And when students encountered issues playing the game because of its large file size, he worked with CDL’s Learning Systems and Technology team to make it accessible for all students on as many types of devices as possible, says Miller.

“The technology is there, embrace it,” Hanson says. “It’s all about teaching and enhancing learning to the best of your ability, and resources here at UCF, like CDL, bring that into amazing focus.”

Faculty who have been certified through or the ��course offered by CDL and would like to find out how they can enhance their course materials through video can create a consultation request at��

“Our high rankings are a testament to the terrific work of our talented faculty and instructional designers who produce engaging, high-quality courses that support our students’ success while also providing them with a flexible learning environment.”
— President Alexander N. Cartwright

Also from U.S. News & World Report, UCF ranked No. 12 (tie) for Best Online Graduate Criminal Justice Programs, No. 20 for Best Online Bachelor’s Programs for Veterans, and No. 27 (tie) for Best Online Master’s in Nursing Programs. This is based on the publication’s 2021 Best Online Programs rankings, which assess schools on student engagement, online learning technologies and support, faculty credentials and training, and the program’s reputation among other universities.

“Our high rankings are a testament to the terrific work of our talented faculty and instructional designers who produce engaging, high-quality courses that support our students’ success while also providing them with a flexible learning environment. Flexible access to high-quality courses continues to increase in importance,” says President Alexander N. Cartwright.

The first online courses launched at ��AV in 1996, marking this year the 25^th anniversary of online learning for the university. These courses have only grown in popularity since, with about 87 percent of students now taking at least one online or blended learning course each academic year.

One of the factors that contributes to UCF’s repeated success in online learning is the level of attention and detail put into creating the courses. Since 1996, UCF has invested in instructional designers who work with faculty members one-on-one to help design and develop their online courses. The working relationship paid off at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when faculty moved an additional 6,600 courses online in about a week.

This is part of a strategy, led by , to foster a culture that empowers faculty with training, technology and the support of experts in online teaching, application development, video and multimedia content that are critical to creating a quality online experience for students.

“I think online courses are such an opportunity for real, robust learning if you do it correctly,” says Amy Gregory, associate professor of hospitality management.

That’s why ever since she took one of the many courses offered by the Center for Distributed Learning that help faculty teach and develop online classes, she hasn’t been shy in connecting with Sue Bauer, an instructional designer. The two have worked together for nearly 10 years to enhance Gregory’s classes.

“We’ve utilized virtually every tool that’s been available to us,” says Gregory, who teaches various lodging courses at Rosen College.

Some of those tools are software that’s been developed by the Center for Distributed Learning team at UCF over the last 25 years. They include interactive graphs, flashcards, video-embedding capabilities and more, and serve as an engaging way to have students interact with the course content.

In some cases, instructional designers and the team at the Center for Distributed Learning build tools customized to a faculty member’s need. That was the case for Desiree Díaz, an associate professor of nursing who teaches courses leading to the online healthcare simulation certificate, which was the first graduate program of its kind in Florida and among only a few programs nationwide. One of her courses, which teaches healthcare professionals to use simulation as a training tool in the field, assigned students to design a simulation training room. In its original form, Díaz would have her online students use paper and pencil to draw where they felt each component of the training room should go and scan the drawing to submit it online. Now, with the help of instructional designer Kathleen Bastedo and web applications developer Corey Peterson, among others, students use a custom software directly in Webcourses that allows them to design the room and submit it with no scanning necessary.

”Sometimes I have a crazy idea,” says Díaz, “but I’m never immediately shut down. Kathleen and the instructional designers are always great to work with and help bring my ideas to life.”

During the Fall 2020 semester, at least 31 faculty members provided their required course materials at no cost to students through . These efforts resulted in an estimated combined savings of $751,339.50��for 6,425 students enrolled in courses across four colleges and nine departments.

With a total enrollment of 71,444, roughly 9 percent of the UCF student-body took a course using OER — up by 5 percent from Fall 2019.

One of the largest contributing factors to the growth of OER usage from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020 was the collective work done by 10 faculty members within the in collaboration with the . These two departments were able to combine their expertise to scale ‘open’ learning through the use of Webcourses and UCF Pressbooks, both available at no additional cost to students and faculty. Their concerted efforts resulted in an estimated combined savings of $232,710.60��for 1,990 students enrolled in nearly every section of College Physics I��and��College Physics II minus the exception of one honors-level section.

“While cost may not be something faculty initially see as much of a problem, taking on the student perspective is key to exhibit a basic level of student care in terms of materials costs,” says Associate Professor of Physics Bo Chen.

While textbook expenditures have plateaued over the past few years, as reported by the , students continue to seek ways to offset the costs.��According to the Florida Virtual Campus 2018 Student Textbook and Course Materials survey, which polled 21,400 students across Florida’s public institutions of higher education, 61 percent did not buy course materials, 43 percent took fewer courses, 41 percent did not register for a course and 23 percent dropped a course altogether — all due to cost.

Health sciences major Emily Sierra has experienced financial strain due to the cost of course materials nearly every semester of her college career.

“At one point, I was living off $100 a month but [was] expected to have the money for textbooks five-times that amount,” says Sierra, who took one of Chen’s courses this semester. “Textbook fees for a single science course can be upwards of $300, so I would only buy the textbook and materials for my science classes and just hope for the best with the rest of my courses.”

OER are broadly defined by UNESCO as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium — digital or otherwise — that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.”

“I believe adopting (open educational resources) has had positive impacts on my teaching as well as students’ learning.” — Assistant Professor Ellen H. Kang

“I believe adopting OER has had positive impacts on my teaching as well as students’ learning,” says Assistant Professor of Physics Ellen H. Kang, who implemented OER materials in her College Physics course. “The free online textbook has enhanced students’ accessibility, [and] the fact that the e-textbook can be customized for each instructor has allowed for greater flexibility in the preparation of my course materials.”

According to Kang and Chen, taking a��collective, departmental approach to selecting “open” educational materials facilitates the building of shareable, well-aligned��courses that faculty can customize and, in turn, share back with their colleagues. As new concepts develop, the current systems can then be enhanced for students’ benefit.

For Sierra, not having to pay for her physics textbooks and course materials was, “a lifesaver.”

“This semester, I was able to afford all of my textbooks and supplies because my physics materials were free,” she says. “Both of my parents lost their jobs at some point this semester because of COVID-19. So having my homework, textbook, quizzes [and] practice problems given to me really was monumental for not just me but also my family.”

And the positive impact extends beyond her budget.

“To have a professor who cared enough to put in the hours of work to make the supplies free, especially in the midst of the scariest and most uncertain times our generation has faced in history, made me feel seen as a student,” she says. “It motivated me to push that much harder when studying because I knew he did very clearly care about our success as students.”

The moves include UCF’s national-model DirectConnect to Ů��AV program and UCF Global, which among other responsibilities, manages international student recruitment, English language programs for students and the community, and international partnerships in education, research and business.

Other aspects of the realignment involve units that impact online student services, faculty training and development, and continuing education for working professionals.

“At UCF, we strive for constant improvement,” Johnson says. “These changes allow us to continue our focus on student success and the student experience.”

The reorganization by the Division of Academic Affairs will unfold throughout September with the following units and offices:

• DirectConnect to UCF and the UCF Connect Centers move to the Division of Student Learning and Academic Success, reporting to Theodorea Regina Berry, vice provost of Student Learning and Academic Success and dean of the College of Undergraduate Studies;
• UCF Global moves to the Office of the Provost, reporting to Tim Letzring, senior associate provost for Academic Affairs;
• UCF Online Connect Center and UCF Continuing Education move to the Division of Digital Learning, reporting to Tom Cavanagh, vice provost for Digital Learning;
• Office of Instructional Resources Classroom Support, Engineering, Programming and Project Management teams move to UCF Information Technology, reporting to Michael Sink, interim vice president and CIO.

The transitions for DirectConnect to UCF, the UCF Connect Centers and UCF Global coincide with the Oct. 1 retirement of Jeff Jones, vice provost for UCF Connect and UCF Global. Johnson praised Jones for his impactful work during his seven years at UCF and for his suggestions and insights regarding the overall realignment.

“The possibilities for this reimagining are exciting,” Johnson said. “As we move forward, success relies on the creativity and collaboration of our staff, faculty and partners.”

The new class strategy will include some face-to-face and online components, and has been added to the lineup of fully online and face-to-face classes.

The BlendFlex delivery model is being developed to provide flexibility for shifting scenarios for faculty and staff in and outside the classroom while maintaining UCF’s academic quality expectations.

Because of space limitations and physical distancing guidelines, some affected courses will require the class to be split into smaller cohorts so students would only be��permitted to attend one in-person class meeting per week or every other week. When not in a physical classroom, students would participate in the rest of the instructions remotely either synchronously (live) or asynchronously (recorded session).

As students view fall schedules online, any BlendFlex model classes will be among the courses designated as a face-to-face modality. However, classes that follow the BlendFlex model will have notes added to the online MyUCF site that indicate the class will follow the BlendFlex approach; those notes are still in the process of being added. Specific details, such as which day of the week to attend class in person, will be determined later by faculty members.

“We’ve provided guidelines, such as capacity limits, to ensure safe distancing,” says registrar Brian Boyd. “However, the instructor is really in the best position to make that determination of how they schedule each group of students depending on the structure of the course and the activities they have planned.”

Some classes require a physical presence. For example: medical classes to practice psychomotor skills, spinal manipulation, body mechanics to transfer patients, etc.

“We need to know all the specific nuances of the musculoskeletal system and also the contributions of all the other systems for movement and health,” says Patrick Pabian, associate director of UCF’s School of Kinesiology and Physical Therapy. “Through touch, students identify tendon thickness, joint line barriers, and identify structural and physical differences in veins, nerves, and arteries.”

Some instruction can be done online, he agrees, but many physical components cannot be replaced online.

Faculty also will be required to make sure they don’t inadvertently disadvantage remote students and ensure that each cohort has equal face-to-face experiences throughout the term.

“We know that we may not have enough physical rooms to move all courses to larger spaces says,” says Tom Cavanagh, vice provost for digital learning, which oversees the campus Center for Distributed Learning. “For student-access purposes, we do not want to reduce enrollment to the new reduced-room capacity.”

Cavanagh explains more about the new delivery system:

Why do we need to implement BlendFlex?

We want to offer students as much choice as possible and avoid a system of limited, small face-to-face sections with everything else being only available online. Rather, for those classes where it makes sense, we want to allow for some meaningful face-to-face experiences for every student in the class.

Just as importantly, in any given class, at any given point in the term, we know that any number of students, or the faculty, may need to be remote for short or long durations. We need a strategy that will permit this type of flexibility while still allowing students to continue academic progress.

Will it be mandatory for students to attend face-to-face lectures for certain classes?

UCF’s interim provost has specifically asked faculty not to enforce rigorous in-person attendance requirements this fall. However, specific requirements per course are defined by each individual faculty member.

How will we prioritize students’ safety during face-to-face meetings?

All required protocols will be in place for any classroom sessions (physical distancing, face coverings, etc.).

Will this system be kept in place after a vaccine or treatment is available for COVID-19?

We are taking this one semester at a time. I think that what we do in the future will be in response to the health context and in compliance with safety guidelines. I will say that we do not intend at this point to continue the BlendFlex delivery strategy as a permanent model.

How will students be informed about the BlendFlex procedures?

We are working on several short videos. We will have another one with more details available later.