Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) CourseShare Program was created to provide a systematic method to enhance access to less commonly taught languages (LCTL) courses that can be “technology facilitated” to eliminate barriers of time and distance among partnering institutions, the 14 Big Ten Universities and the University of Chicago.
More than 500 language courses have been offered via CourseShare since the beginning of the program. In recent years, Ohio State students have taken courses in Basque, Catalan, Czech, Haitian Creole, Finnish, Ojibwe, Polish, Portuguese, Swahili, Syriac, Thai, Ukrainian, and Urdu with their peers and an instructor from a courseshare partnering university. On the other side of the collaboration, in recent years, students from those universities have become "part-time Buckeyes", taking courses in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Cantonese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Quechua, Romanian, and Turkish.
The language courses available range from beginning level to advanced and vary year-to-year depending on the capacity and needs at each institution. Most courseshare agreements have started with a department requesting a specific language and level course and one of the partnering institutions volunteering to share a course that fits the description.
BTAA CourseShare classes are typically synchronous online with specified class meeting times. OSU students are added to the learning management system (LMS) used by the partnering institution (Carmen is the Ohio State LMS) and are full participants in the enrolled class. There is no cost sharing by partnering universities and no additional fees charged to participating students. Participating students register for the approved shared language course at the same time and in the same manner as regular courses. Grades and credits are reported on the student’s home university transcript.
The BTAA CourseShare Program broadens the opportunities for students to learn less commonly taught languages and connect with students at peer institutions also learning these languages. These courses are not meant to replace existing Ohio State course offerings, but rather augment what is available in regularly scheduled OSU classes.
Shared course requests are initiated and must be approved by the OSU department that would be scheduling the course in our registration system as part of the courseshare process. Departments and students should send any general questions or specific courseshare request inquiries to the Ohio State BTAA CourseShare Coordinator, Jeremie Smith (smith.12199@osu.edu).
Students wanting to take courseshare class are strongly encouraged to check with their advisors and departments to ensure it will enhance their studies and apply toward academic program requirements.
BTAA CourseShare Frequently Asked Questions for Faculty and Departments
