[MUSIC]
Hi, I'm Professor Yvonne Harrison from the University at Albany.
Along with my colleague Professor Vick Murray of the University of Victoria and
the entire instructional team,
we want to welcome you to the Governance of Nonprofit Organizations course.
By registering for this course, you are part of a University at Albany and
an open SUNY innovative instructional technology grant project to
increase access to nonprofit leadership in management education.
In this video I'm going to describe why this course was chosen for the project.
How the course is structured and the learning within it organized.
And what you can do to get the most value out of it.
I'll conclude with an overview of our role, and some rules for
engagement as we work through this course.
Again, thank you and welcome.
Why did we choose a course on non-profit governance for the pilot?
Well, we did so for four reasons.
One, I've been teaching this course on-site, and it meets academic curricular
guidelines for nonprofit management and leadership education.
Two, this is a course that integrates new methods of teaching and
learning, academic service learning, and
team-based learning that have been associated with student learning.
Three, it connects to our research on non-profit governance.
And through our research we've been able to develop a number of tools and
resources that make assessing performance and
teaching governance concepts more efficient and effective.
And finally, we understand that through emerging issues and
challenge that nonprofit organizations and
their leaders are facing that governance continues to be a significant challenge.
So for all of these reasons, we chose this course as the pilot to
increase access to nonprofit management and leadership education.
How is the course structured and the learning organized?
We've organized the course and learning in three modules.
Each module examines a specific topic, set of questions, and concepts.
Modules are further broken down into weeks.
Each week, you'll be asked to review content, take a quiz,
post a commentary and reflect on a case.
You'll also find guidance on your semester project and
due dates of any assignments and how to submit them.
At the end of each module will be an assessment of learning.
Here you'll take an individual time test and take that same test again in a team.
You'll also have an opportunity to discuss any concepts that were confusing as
well as participate in exercises to apply the knowledge gained through the module.
And finally, you'll be able to discuss your semester project with your peers, and
any issues or challenges that you're having.
How do you get the most value out of this course?
We believe you'll get the most value out of this course if
you download the required and
the recommended texts, and you complete all of the learning activities.
This is especially important if you're taking this course for
a verified certificate or if you want to use this for continuing education.
[MUSIC]
Finally, I want to conclude with our role in designing this project and
some rules for engagement.
We've taken a role as facilitators of learning, trying to bring to you into one
place, a course with the latest knowledge and resources on a complex subject.
All of the people involved in this project are volunteers,
with full time jobs who have donated their time for a cause they believe in.
And that's increasing access to nonprofit management and leadership education and
developing leaders who are capable of high levels of effectiveness.
Finally, I just wanted to go over some rules of engagement.
As a pilot project in taking an on-site course and making it available online,
we understand there may be some technical difficulties and even some design flaws.
We're depending on you to communicate those issues to us so
that we can respond to them.
In identifying