This is a summary of the Africa Scholarship Cohort Program at the University of Virginia. This program has reached more than 700 learners in 22 countries in Africa over the past 3 years through a series of 8 online courses in business.

1. Global Outreach with the African Scholarship Cohort
Dr. Kristin Palmer, kristin@virginia.edu
The University of Virginia is a public university. Part of the mission of the
institution is educational outreach. MOOCs have provided an opportunity
for global educational outreach. In 2016, the Darden Graduate School of
Business, Mbarara Institute of Science and Technology in Uganda, and
Distance Education of Africa (DEAfrica) in Kenya launched the African
Scholarship Cohort (ASC) Program. Through this program eight MOOCs in
business strategy, design thinking and project management have been
offered free to over 600 learners. Although this effort has required
significant administrative oversight with literally thousands of emails and
hundreds of hours, it has been rewarding.
Difficulties included dealing with wifi issues, a general lack of
understanding for how to learn online, and then platform challenges. The
mobile application and the ability to download videos has been a good
work around for intermittent wifi. The mentor community, synchronous
calls and weekly email announcements that include frequently asked
questions helps with platform questions such as identity verification,
deadlines and switching sessions. Approximately 50% of new learners
have issues with the current identity verification process. It is also worth
noting that we have broadcast to the group they can take advantage of
Financial Aid to take other classes with waived fees but there is no
understanding in this population of what Financial Aid means so they do
not leverage this benefit.
ASC has provided an opportunity for pedagogy interventions and research.
This cohort has extensively utilized social media (WhatsApp), mentors and
synchronous calls to build community. The ASC has also been leveraged as
a research opportunity with over a dozen conference presentations and
several papers produced. ASC participants are social, employed and get
career benefits from participation. They also take many of the courses and
complete them. We get feedback they would like more support such as
learner support chat functionality and content in regional languages. Next
steps for ASC include growing the mentor community, creating online
learning readiness materials localized for this region and population,
partnering with more content providers and funding sources.
Overview
Survey Data and Learner Insights
Foundations of Business Strategy Specialization