Athabasca University is Canada's Open University and is one the leading in the country.
It teaches over 37,000 students from across 87 different countries all over the world. This shows the extent to which this distance education scheme is working, not just for those in Canada.
They have an open admission policy, being they take on students regarless of their educational background. The only criteria they have is that all students must be 16 or older, so they take school leavers and anyone else. This means so many more people have the oppurtinity to further their education.
CDE has 12 core faculty members and then one research chair.
The students can have the chance to work along side many researchers and professors from all over the world. Which you wouldn't get if this wasn't a distance learning course.
The Centre for Distance Education offers graduate-level credentials:
Doctor of education in distance Education
Master of Distance Education
Graduate Diploma in Distance Education Technology
Graduate Diploma in Instructional Design
Graduate Ceryificate in Instrucational Design
The course run throughout the year and you can start them in three different semesters. They don't last as long as conventional courses at Universities. But this again allows those who have less time the chance to further their studies. There are over 19 different courses avaliable. See Link - http://cde.athabascau.ca/syllabi/list.php
The University has a social networking site of its own, so students studying the online course can interact with other students, along with many other forms of online communication between students. Such as the student Cafe and the me2u social software system- which links you to students with similar interests, keeps check on your work, as well as enabling the use of a blog! There is also the chance to meet other students every year, which I think is good as it gives students to actually meet their peers and discuss the course and work face-to-face.
I think this Open University offers a lot to a wide range of people and the fact anyone over 16 can join is a brilliant thing, the fact students don't necessarily have to have A levels means those who left straight after school get another chance. The forum and social networking site they offer would seem to make it much easier for the students as they are ensured to have some form of interaction.
Yes, Canada is another country where the population is sparse - very spread out and sometimes inaccessible. Looks like they have an extensive programme to teach teachers to teach!! Self fulfilling. Maybe there is a growing need for this type of distance learning in Canada. Also i believe Canada has a strong reputation for homeschooling which might underpin the distance learning ethos.
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