How We Work
The mission of UF Online is to enable our students to lead and influence the next generation and beyond for economic, cultural and societal benefit by delivering a comprehensive offering of high quality, fully online baccalaureate degree programs at an affordable cost.
Underlying Principles and Framework
At UF Online, we believe it is our professional responsibility to ensure the provision of quality online education—from multiple perspectives and with multiple goals in mind—for students, for the University of Florida, and for the future of the workforce in Florida and beyond.
What We Care About
Quality – Flexibility – Affordability – Student Support and Success – Community and Belonging – Faculty Support – Connecting Research to Practice
Our definition of quality is ever-evolving and defined by the voices of UF Online students as well as through learning and sharing the experiences of the wider academic community, national and international associations for online learning, peer-reviewed literature, and UF quality standards. We study our practice to learn what’s working and what isn’t, we innovate, and we iterate towards greatness.
Student Experience
One of the key areas we focus on is the overall UF experiences of students earning their degrees through UF Online. These students are “Gators from day one” and we strive to bring them a campus experience even if they never set foot on the main UF campus. UF Online has defined a specific set of “areas of inclusion” for fully online students to ensure they have opportunities to participate in academics that go beyond their online courses. These four areas of Inclusion are: 1) experiential learning courses, 2) art and music enrichment courses, 3) campus activities and courses, and 4) study abroad or graduate courses.
Every student in UF Online has supported access to equitable, inclusive, flexible, innovative, and ultimately student-centered opportunities to engage in the Aspects of Student Experience shown in the diagram above.
We also care about student voices and we seek their feedback and perspectives regularly to inform support and engagement resources, events, and communications. The IRB-approved Student Experience Survey aims to explore the experiences of students pursuing their degrees via UF Online and to learn more about who they are and what motivates them, as well as to discover not only how satisfied they are, but also what is important to them; how, when, and why they are engaging in resources and opportunities; and how UF Online can best support their success. This survey is a critical aspect of how we serve fully online students at UF: by learning where they are, we can meet them there and improve our responsiveness more every year.
Approaches
UF Online’s approaches to our initiatives and mission involve:
- Facilitating dialogues between and among stakeholders (learners, faculty, instructional designers, program leaders, institutional leaders) to connect practices and policies for online learning with ground-level experiences.
- Engaging instructors and programs through academic scholarship—both dissemination and generation—in order to continuously improve online teaching and learning at the University of Florida.
- Listening to, amplifying the voices, and answering the call of learners and faculty seeking to have their needs met.
- Maintaining deep and ongoing collaborations with academic, administrative, and support units throughout the University of Florida to effectively and efficiently enact our mission.
- Strategically investing in the growth of programs, institutional capacity, innovations in online learning, and support services to ensure continuous forward momentum towards our goals.
Student Support
Beyond providing UF Online and PaCE students with dedicated academic advisors who understand the specialized needs of online learners, our overall approach and perspective to supporting students is informed by our commitment to keeping the student as the focus of our efforts.
To provide students with the best possible experience, UF Online is committed to supporting students in ways that are humanizing, adaptable, equitable, and ultimately student-centered.
Goals for 2025-2030
Over the next five years, UF Online aims to achieve the following targets through implementing short-term Strategic Objectives to iteratively build towards accomplishing our goals.
Continuous improvement
Strategic offering of high-quality online programs and courses that are responsive to the needs of the workforce and focused on delivering flexible, learner-centered educational opportunities using evidence-based teaching practices.
Faculty support & engagement
Support for data-inspired communities of faculty engaged in online teaching and learning and the continuous improvement of their pedagogical practice.
Student support & success
Comprehensive supports, resources, and engagement opportunities enabling a diverse body of students to succeed within an enriching and connected online learning experience.
Thought leadership & contribution
Scholarly thought leadership and engagement in practice-based research for contribution to the field of online learning in higher education.
Sustainability & robust integration
Collaborative, evidence-based, and data-informed practices that enable ongoing operational sustainability and robust institutional integration.
Focus on Strategic Objectives
Strategic Objectives are informed by the goals above, but are more specifically defined with measurable outcomes and intended to be achieved within established time frames. These objectives, achieved regularly, will ensure forward momentum on our longer team aspirational goals to support the ongoing success of our mission at the University of Florida.
Beginning in 2025, look for Impact Reports in our Publications section of this website.
Determining Impacts
UF Online’s inquiry process for determining our impacts is based on principles that ensure we will:
Ask genuine and open questions to discover impacts that may or may not be attributed to our efforts.
Gather and analyze data from a variety of sources to generate evidence and lead to findings regarding these impacts.
Openly acknowledge the findings whether they indicate success, failure, or unintended consequences.
Use what we learn about our impacts to inform future efforts, initiatives, and strategies.
UF Online provides…
…centralized student support and advocacy, innovation in instructional and media design, dedicated academic advising, recruitment and admissions support, data and analytical support, marketing and outreach services, “one stop” financial and registrar support, guidance for faculty and programs, and collaborative partnerships across, and beyond, the University of Florida.
Organizational Structure
Provost Office, Academic Affairs
UF Online is a unit within the University of Florida Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Director of UF Online reports to the Assistant Provost and Senior Director of Operations.
We support and are supported by our “sister” units in this area, who share a focus on UF’s academic mission, ranging from workforce development to online innovation to marketing and communications to high school education programs, and more. Learn more about these offices.
Partnering with College and Programs
At UF, the colleges are the stewards of the curriculum, which means all decisions related to course and program content originate with the faculty in each department, school, and/or college. UF Online partners with these academic units to ensure flexible, high quality delivery of their courses and programs via a fully online format. As such, we view all UF faculty as our close colleagues for whom we are here to support, assist, and help succeed.
Because of our commitment to student support and success, we also fund positions and partner with academic advisors across these academic units. Advisors report to their employing units while serving as pivotal supports for the UF Online-specific body of students, offering them specialized and individualized guidance, assistance, and coaching.
Partner Teams
As an integrated model of online education at UF, there are many other units whose efforts dovetail directly and indirectly with the work we do in UF Online. Some of these units are funded directly by online student tuition and focus on UF Online entirely, and others provide services to all students across UF, including UF Online and PaCE students. Some of our key partner units include UF Online Enrollment Services (Division of Enrollment Management), Office of Admissions (Division of Enrollment Management), Career Connections Center (Student Affairs), New Student and Family Programs (Student Life), Counseling and Wellness Center (Student Life), Center for Undergraduate Research (Academic Affairs), and many more.
