Our Story
 Kentucky Virtual Campus (KYVC)
is an innovation of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the Council on Postsecondary Education. The KYVC does not offer degrees.
Its credit-bearing academic programs come from accredited postsecondary institutions or the K-12 schools utilizing the KYVC
infrastructure. The state's official virtual campus opened its doors to students in the fall of 1999. Since that time, KYVC
has provided one-stop access to affordable for-credit courses and professional development programs offered online from
colleges, universities, K-12 schools and state agencies. For its postsecondary and state agency partners, the KYVC acts
as clearinghouse, consultant, and project manager, provides the electronic infrastructure, and acts as the registration
and virtual student services arm. The KYVC's students are 34 years old on average; about 70% of them are female, and over
75% are from a rural county.
Currently the KYVC hosts five websites:
KYVC Milestones
2005
January
The KYVU4K12 initiative gains a full-time project manager, Bob Gardner, who will focus on bringing a high quality experience to
the K12 communities and families who choose to use the combined resources of the KYVU, KYVL and KVHS.
February
KYVU rolls out the new Secure Browser feature for proctored examinations and high stakes testing using the KY Virtual
eLearning Portal.
March
At the Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference in Louisville, KYVL presents awards to the Student Technology Leadership
Program (STLPTM) elementary, middle and high school winners of the second annual "Create a KYVL Public Service Announcement
Video" contest.
May
A special committee from the Southern Association for Colleges and Schools (SACS) conduct a site visit to KYVU on a
fact-finding tour regarding the role of KYVU’s postsecondary institution providers and the level of services provided
to students.
KYVU announces the three winners of the 2005 KYVU Online Excellence Awards, given to faculty who create courses that
exhibit high-quality, interactive, learner-centered experiences. See more on this at our
KYVU Online Excellence Award Winners web page.
August
KYVL reports that its licensed databases supported 11 million searches for FY04-05.
Fall
KYVU enrollment (unduplicated headcount of learners) reaches all-time high of 55,964 learners – more than 2˝ times
what it was in 2003.
November
PDtrack, KYVU's degree audit and tracking software built for KYAE's new professional development system, goes from the
pilot phase to production.
KYVL celebrates six years online and serving Kentucky.
KYVU adds 210th partner.
KYVU and CPE hosts a day-long session with its institutional partner providers and other interested state agency and
postsecondary administrative staff, kicking off a series of meetings focusing on the KYVU mission and purpose.
2004
January
The Kentucky Virtual Adult Education website and portal, designed and maintained by the KYVU under the direction of
the staff of Kentucky Adult Education, captured first place in the "Innovative Use of Technology" category in the 2003
NASCIO Recognition Awards. Twelve states competed in that category. The National Association of State Chief Information
Officer's annual awards program recognizes technology initiatives which "best assist government officials in innovatively
executing their duties and providing cost-effective service to citizens."
The KYVAE.org was featured in the February issue of EDUCAUSE Online (released to more than 10,000 subscribers) and on the
EDUCAUSE home page for the week of February 16th showcased in the EDUCAUSE Effective Practices and Solutions database.
May
The KYVU partnered with the University of Kentucky (UK) on behalf of the Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB),
the state's teacher certification agency. The UK staff had created electronic learning materials for K-12 teacher professional
development in physics and wished to offer these materials via the KYVU.org website for academic degree credit and the
KyEducators.org website for professional development credit.
The KYVU was featured in the Minnesota K-20 eLearning
Conference as a Best Practices model. Norma Northern and Randolph Hollingsworth presented a session highlighting the seamless
integration across multiple systems, the student support services and consultation services for KYVU partners.
June
The KYVU collaborated with the Kentucky Adult Education to allow Kentucky adult educators to login to the KYVAE.org
portal and access a professional development course and resources from Pennsylvania State World Campus (PSWC). The
PSWC is an operating unit of the Pennsylvania State University and first offered online courses in 1998. In a partnership
agreement with the National Institute for Family Literacy (NIFL), the PSWC created an online course, "Introduction
to Family Literacy." PSWC worked with the KYVU and KYAE to grant access and delivery of this course to selected
Kentucky-based practitioners via the KYVAE.org website.
Also, the KYVU completed the negotiations for a new partnership with Indiana University (IU) also on behalf of the
EPSB. IU uses a course management system known as the Learning to Teach with Technology Studio (LTTS) to deliver courses
designed to teach K-12 teachers and pre-service teachers how best to integrate technology in the classroom. The KYVU
and IU began work to provide single-sign-on access to the educational courses listed in the LTTS for KyEducators registrants.
These new programs and courses will be offered via KyEducators by the fall of 2004.
2003
February
The KYVU, in partnership with the Kentucky Virtual High School and GEAR UP Kentucky, launched the KYVU4K12.org website
and e-learning portal for K-12 students and their learning partners.
March
The KYVU switched from its original PeopleSoft student information system and launched eRMA, the eLearning Resources
Management Assistance. This system provides a single-sign-on portal (allowing students and instructors to use their
existing username/password) with access to all KYVU learning platforms, including ANGEL, WebCT, PLATO, W-WIN, LiteracyLink
and the KY Virtual Library's electronic databases. eRMA allows students to look at course descriptions in the catalog,
register for classes, review enrollment status, and change their passwords. It allows faculty and staff to request accounts
and course shells, manage learners and courses, get reports, and more. The KYVU also implemented e-commerce via its new EduCart,
using a statewide e-payment gateway that connects to Link2Gov, a contracted credit card processor. This service was first
implemented for the KyEducators.org website, but is available for any KYVU provider to utilize for their target audiences.
April
The KYVU launched the KYVU Coordinated Advising Network (UCAN), partly funded by a grant from the federal Department of
Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, a partnership with the Kentucky Community and Technical
College System, the Kentucky Department of Education, the Kentucky Adult Education, the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority,
Northern Kentucky University, Morehead University, the Kentucky Counseling Association, and GEAR UP Kentucky.
May
The KYVU unduplicated enrollment headcount of 9,746 for academic providers in Spring 2003 was announced at the DLAC meeting.
3,386 learners enrolled in non-credit courses. They came from all 120 Kentucky counties, plus 37 states and 6 foreign countries.
Top ten counties served were: Jefferson, Pike, McCracken, Fayette, Hardin, Daviess, Mason, Floyd, Harlan, and Graves. Approximately
65% of the learners were age 23 or older.
September
The KYVU underwent substantial personnel cuts. Council President Tom Layzell appointed Norma Northern, Chief Operating Officer,
to serve as interim CEO of the virtual university. Northern has been on the Council staff for six years. Daniel Rabuzzi became
the CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute headquartered in New York City. Myk Garn, KYVU Chief Academic Officer, moved to the
CPE Academic Affairs unit to become Senior Consultant for Distance Learning. Sue Patrick, KYVU Marketing Director, was
promoted to CPE Public Relations Director. Miko Pattie, KYVU CIO, was transferred to the CPE IT unit where she retained her
role as KYVU CIO in addition to other duties assigned. Gene Ranvier, Chief Student Services Officer, and Dottie Stone, KYVU
Call Center staff, announced their retirement at the end of the year.
The Fall of 2003 saw a 122% increase in total learners served from the previous year - a total of 21,765 unduplicated
headcount. Of these, 12,915 were served by Kentucky academic institutions. Though the KYVU's for-credit course enrollment
was increasing at an astounding rate, the new partnerships crafted by the KYVU had caused enrollment in non-credit courses
to rise from 148 learners for spring 2001 to 1,365 for spring 2002. Enrollment in the not-for-credit courses offered within
the KYVU infrastructure rose from 1,398 in the Fall of 2002 to 8,950 in the Fall of 2003: a 533% increase.
October
The KYVL Outreach Workgroup announced a contest to invite Kentucky's public elementary, middle and high school
students in STLP (the Student Technology Leadership Program) to create a 15-second commercial for KYVL. Awards and certificates
were given to the winners and participants during an awards ceremony at the Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference in March
2004. This contest is an annual event to showcase the creative work of Kentucky's students and to spotlight STLP coordinators
and students. The KYVL total database usage for FY2002-2003 increased almost 22% over the previous year - from an average of
590 searches per hour to an average of 747 searches per hour - for a total of 6.5 million times. Peak usage in March 2003
spiked at 960,723 for 1316 searches per hour (a 27% increase at peak use over the previous year's peak month). The following
statistics were announced at the October 1, 2003 DLAC meeting:
- K-12 schools - 1,254,909 searches (19.2%)
- Public postsecondary institutions - 3,264,571 (50.1%)
- Private postsecondary institutions - 1,208,907 (18.5%)
- Public libraries - 515,562 (7.9%)
- Special libraries - 286,518 (4.4%)
2002
January
KYVU opened registration for the Spring 2002 with expanded services to students, including free online tutoring
for the Spring term, Sunday call center hours, and an online writing center, the KYVU WritePlace. KYVU helped
Eastern Kentucky University launch the nation's first on-line master's degree program in loss prevention and safety.
EKU's College of Justice & Safety rolled out the 36-credit-hour program to meet the needs of working professionals in
the fields of safety, fire, security, insurance, human resources and related areas.
May
The first annual KYVU Online Excellence Awards were handed out at the Council for Postsecondary Education's Faculty
Development conference. The award program recognizes exemplary integration of instructional best practices with
technology. A statewide panel of students, faculty and course developers judged the nominations. The KYVU's non-credit
courses rose in enrollment from 148 learners for spring 2001 to 1,365 for spring 2002.
June
The KYVU announced that the original KYVU platform via Eduprise (the Eduprise Rapid Course Development Delivery
System) and Prometheus would be turned off and all availability to these applications would be terminated on June
28, 2002. With the help of KYVU partners (including UK, EKU, KCTCS, KDE, EPSB, and Adult Education), the KYVU selected
Embanet.com as the new integrator vendor and two new course management systems: ANGEL and WebCT.
July
The Kentucky Virtual Library and the Kentucky Department of Adult Education and Literacy launched the Kentucky Adult Education
Resource Database. Eighteen Kentucky educators and librarians generated the content for the records that they then contributed
to LINCS (Literacy Information and Communication System), a national collaborative database of 5,000 records with links to
online resources for adult education instructors. The KYVL staff also converted the LINCS database to be Z39.50 compliant,
an international search and retrieval protocol so others could interface more effectively with this national database.
Kentucky's initiative is also searchable through the Library of Congress.
August
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) and the KYVU partnered with the West Virginia Higher Education
Policy Commission to provide access to Kentucky's distance learning courses for students enrolled in WV community and
technical colleges.
The KYVU won three awards from the Kentucky Association of Government Communicators:
- The Kentucky Virtual University website received the "Award of Excellence" - the judges' comments
included such statements as: "All state government websites should be this good. I wish I could take credit for it
because it follows the rules I preach--clear, simple, informative and elegant." ... "Well-organized,
clean but appealing graphics, informative and succinct. The online press kit is a terrific tool for delivering
content in a compact way." ... "Is there anything not here?" ... "For the audience, it's practically perfect."
- The Kentucky Virtual University's outreach efforts (Overall Communication) received a second place "Award of Merit"
- The Kentucky Virtual Library Annual Report received a second place "Award of Merit"
August
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) and the KYVU partnered
with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission to provide access to Kentucky's distance learning courses for students
enrolled in WV community and technical colleges.
November
The CPE revised the definition of a "KYVU learner" and "KYVU course" to reflect the KYVU's new initiatives.
Many users of the KYVU's services were not enrolled at an academic institution (e.g., KYVAE.org and KyEducators.org).
To be counted as a KYVU learner, an individual must meet any one of the following three criteria:
- he or she is enrolled in a course, module, or other program housed on a course management platform or other software licensed by the KYVU;
- he or she registers through the KYVU for a course, module, or other program, regardless of where it is housed electronically; or
- he or she uses in a material and countable way other KYVU services, such as the call center.
Learner statistics for the KYVU are kept on the basis of unduplicated headcount; all KYVU learners also will be counted by
and at their respective institutions and state agencies. The courses housed on a course management platform licensed by the
KYVU and the courses for which a learner must register through the KYVU are, by definition, KYVU courses.
The KYVU Revolving Loan funded, against institutional match, nine projects at six Kentucky institutions: Kentucky Community and
Technical College System, University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Northern Kentucky University, Morehead State
University, and Murray State University (leading a seven-institution collaborative).
The KY Department of Education notified the KYVU that their proposal in partnership with the Kentucky Virtual High School
was accepted for KYVU4K12, a supplemental education services portal for Title I Improvement Schools as identified in the
"No Child Left Behind" legislation.
December
KYVU CEO Daniel Rabuzzi appointed Enid Wohlstein as director of the Kentucky Virtual Library. Kentucky Virtual Library
for Kids received a Golden Web Award from the International Association of Webmasters and Designers.
The KYVU's Fall 2002 term included
- 32 for-credit programs offered by Kentucky public colleges and universities: 11 skill certificates, 4 associate degrees,
8 baccalaureate degrees, 9 master's degrees. The KYVU processed over 12,000 enrollments.
- 12 professional development offerings for Kentucky teachers and other K-12 personnel on KyEducators.org (developed and
maintained by the KYVU for and on behalf of the Education Professional Standards Board). E-commerce was launched on the
KyEducators website, using the EduCart function where if the registrant successfully pays online, he or she gains immediate
access to the course materials.
- 12 training modules for instructors and 25 instructional offerings for adult learners on KYVAE.org (developed and maintained
by the KYVU for and on behalf of the Kentucky Department for Adult Education & Literacy).
- The Kentucky Virtual Library handled over 6.5 million searches; three new workgroups were created (ADA, Outreach, and Portal).
2001
January
Spring enrollment is nearly doubled from this time last year. To date 6,100 Kentuckians have enrolled over five semesters.
June
Dr. Daniel A. Rabuzzi, CPE Associate Vice President for Economic Initiatives, is appointed as interim CEO of KYVU after Dr.
Mary Beth Susman accepts new position as Vice President of Education Services for Community Colleges of Colorado.
July
Summer enrollment grows to 2,012 students. KYVU offers 34 college credit programs with 246 courses, representing
28 colleges and universities for the Fall 2001 term.
October
The KYVU experienced a 112% increase in student enrollment this fall. Of the students enrolled, 80%-90% were from campuses
within the Kentucky postsecondary system already. The Virtual Library had an average of approximately 600,000 searches on
the databases per month. The Virtual Library databases cost about $1.8 million a year for the statewide e-database licenses
and saved its members $36 million over three years.
November
The KYVU issued a call for proposals for grants from a new Revolving Loan Fund where institutions could apply for funding
of the development of online courses but the loan must be repaid, with interest-free repayment.
December
Gordon Davies, president of the Council on Postsecondary Education, announced the appointment of Daniel A. Rabuzzi as the chief
executive officer of the two-year-old Kentucky Virtual University and he continued to serve as the council's vice president
for economic initiatives. Ling-yuh (Miko) Pattie, the founding director of the Kentucky Virtual Library, was promoted to chief
information officer at KYVU.
2000
January
Spring enrollment exceeds projections with 1,578 students.
February
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) approves KCVU for single statewide review and accreditation.
April
Dr. Mary Beth Susman hosts the first International Virtual University CEO Summit in Lexington, Ky., bringing
together more than 30 virtual institution leaders from the US and Mexico. The group later named itself The Lexington
Group.
August
New names, logos and URLs for Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU) and Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL) are officially announced on August 14.
September
KYVU's fall enrollment climbed to 2,374, representing students from 119 Kentucky counties, four foreign countries, and 19 states.
1999
January
Dr. Mary Beth Susman appointed as the first CEO of KCVU.
March
KCVU is inducted into the permanent archives of the Computerworld Smithsonian Program.
May
KCVU and KCVL hold virtual groundbreaking in Louisville.
July
KCVU opens its first student enrollment.
August
KCVU begins its first fall semester with 235 students enrolled in nine pilot projects. Statewide fee for registration
and admissions to KCVU established by DLAC.
November
The KCVL is officially launched.
1998
January
DLAC initiates the planning and development of KCVU.
April
The Kentucky General Assembly funds KCVU with an initial investment of $18 million.
October
Institutions across the state submit 42 online pilot project proposals to KCVU.
November
KCVU pilot kick-off event—a statewide conference for faculty and administrators was held.
1997
May
Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual University (KCVU) is created with passage of the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement
Act of 1997. KCVU is the first state-sponsored online university in the nation.
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