Director of Florida International University’s Online Program Resigns
May 10th, 2007
florida international university's director of online education resigned this week amidst accusations that he profited by arranging for students to purchase electronic textbooks from a company he owned.
Instead of buying the books from a college website, the students were directed to the director's site.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the arrangement may have violated the Florida International University's conflict of interest policy. However, the growth of online classes has caused colleges such as FIU to outsource:
"…Often the easiest way to manage rapid growth at large universities is to outsource certain operations, which is what happened at FIU Online in this case. Students in the online program who would previously have bought their electronic textbooks from the university were directed to a Web site run by HigherL, the company that Izadpanah [the director] and Morejon reportedly owned."
For more on this story see: An Online Course in Ethics.
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