UBC Reports | Vol. 48 | No. 11 | Sep. 5 , 2002

UBC Launches its First On-line Master's Degree

First class includes students from around the world

By Shari Virjee

For the first time in UBC history, students will be able to get a degree without even stepping on campus.

The Master of Educational Technology (MET) is not only being taught entirely on the Internet but it is also a joint degree, developed and delivered with Tec de Monterrey, Mexico's leading private university.

The program is offered this month by the Faculty of Education, and is being developed in collaboration with the Distance Education & Technology division of Continuing Studies, an established world leader in the field of on-line learning.

Distance education programs have used a predominantly independent study approach to teaching because the technologies did not allow for sustained interaction and collaboration. But with on-line technologies all that changed.

"Using on-line technologies to deliver distance education has enabled us both to increase the quality of our programs and to reach out to the world," says Tony Bates, director of Distance Education & Technology. He adds that on-line courses let learners interact with each other and their instructors and collaborate on projects and assignments. They also allow for rich intercultural experiences in which learners from different regions of the world can come together on-line to share experiences and work together.

The MET emerged from the highly successful and award-winning Post Graduate Certificate in Technology-based Learning (TBDL), designed and delivered by UBC Distance Education and Technology (DE&T) in collaboration with Tec de Monterrey from 1997 until this year. For the MET, educators from both institutions teamed up to develop a graduate program aimed at educators in both the K-12 and the post-secondary sectors who are interested in learning how to make effective use of learning technologies in their practice. The MET has attracted educators from across BC and as far as Switzerland and the Philippines (see sidebar below). A quarter of MET applicants are TBDL graduates intending to transfer courses to obtain a Master's designation.

More than 60 credit courses are now available on-line through Distance Education & Technology and several new and innovative professional degree programs are in development.

For more information visit Distance Education & Technology at http://det.ubc.ca, or the MET website at http://met.ubc.ca.

Shari Virjee is the manager of New Business Development for Distance Education and Technology.