The California State University Board of Trustees recognized the success of online courses in reducing requirement bottlenecks at their meeting last week.

Bottlenecked courses are class sections that present some obstacle to students trying to get their degrees, according to the CSU.

The system plans to spend $10 million to reduce the number  of bottleneck courses in the 2013-2014 school year by infusing technology into the curriculum.

The major factors that make a course a bottleneck are a lack of student readiness, proper campus facilities and scheduling problems, according to a presentation by two CSU officials.

Under the proposal, five courses will be offered to 19 campuses through the CSU’s eAcademics curriculum.

Seventy-seven classes in the CSU were granted awards averaging $33,000 to redesign the classes and make them more accessible. Nineteen of these classes will be delivered completely online.

The CSU is also planning to reduce course bottlenecks through their Intrasystem Concurrent Enrollment Program. The program will allow students to access 33 fully online classes. Currently there are about 160 students enrolled in such courses system-wide, according to a CSU presentation.

The success of the eAcademy classes and the Intrasystem Concurrent Enrollment Program could lead to the expansion of further online classes to alleviate bottleneck courses, according to the presentation.

Aubrey Crosby can be reached at [email protected] or @aubreycrosby on Twitter.