According to Steven Sorg, UCF’s assistant vice president and director of distributed learning,
on-campus efficiencies, as well as convenience to students, are achieved through M courses that blend face-to-face and Web-based instruction. However, while M courses have grown steadily, he adds that they have not taken off as he had first expected.

"I would say that the mixed mode is an unfulfilled potential for administrative efficiencies," Sorg claims. In spring 2004, only 40 percent of the M course sections actually wound up saving UCF physical space. One reason for the low 40 percent figure deals with "the idiosyncratic way that schedules are built," he says. "Each department does it differently. They all have different nuances in the way they schedule classes."
Meanwhile, a committee has been formed to look at this issue and will come forward with recommendations for improving scheduling efficiencies for M courses.

Institutional Impact
In a brief report titled "Access, Quality and Efficiency through Online Learning," Sorg outlines the following statistics which reflect the impact of W courses (fully online), M courses (mixed mode) and E courses (Web-enhanced) on the UCF campus.

• During the 2003-2004 academic year:
  · UCF offered 1,996 course sections via distributed learning.
  · Distributed learning course sections accounted for over 41,400 enrollments.
   
• During fall 2003, 28% of all UCF course registra- tions were in online courses or courses that had a substantial Web component and used WebCT.
   
• During 2002-2003, 38% (17,734) of UCF students enrolled in at least one totally Web-based (W) or Reduced Seat Time (M) Web course section.
   
• During 2002-2003, 20% (9,442) of UCF students this year enrolled in a totally Web-based course section.
   
• To date:
  · 505 different courses have been offered fully online.
  · 472 different courses have been offered in the mixed mode/reduced seat time mode.
  · 396 faculty members have completed UCF’s faculty development program for teaching online.

The direct and indirect positive economic impact of UCF’s online learning initiative is becoming significant. A large portion of the student credit hours generated by the 5,428 students enrolled in UCF’s fully online programs during 2002-2003 and likely all of the SCH from the 990 students taking exclusively online courses that year—would not have been produced were it not for the availability of the online learning option.

UCF must construct approximately 8,000 square feet of new classroom space each year to keep pace with growth. The classroom space assigned to each student is 22 square feet. With a 1.5:1 gross to net ratio, 33 square feet of instructional space must be constructed per student classroom seat. Classroom space costs approximately $150/SF to construct and $5.60/year to operate. Thus, each classroom seat not having to create saves $3,300 in construction costs and $123.20/year in operational costs. Just the portion of online students taking exclusively Web courses (990 students) saves $4,900,500 in construction costs and an additional $182,952 in annual operating costs. Further, online students do not require the construction of parking space.

http://distrib.ucf.edu/dlucf/rstenroll.htm