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Graduate School of Management & Technology - Programs

Master of Distance Education

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Distance Education Teaching and Training (DETT) Specialization Description

Master the demands associated with emerging information and communication technologies. Your advanced skills in this growing field will ensure your leadership position.

The specialization is grounded in the core course – OMDE 610 Teaching and Learning in Online Education. Managing online teaching requires some mastery of the instructional design process as well as the integration of the appropriate selection of media.

Note that:

  • The goal of the MDE program is to educate managers and leaders in the field of distance education not teachers and trainers in specific content areas.
  • The objective of the teaching and training specialization is to educate managers to deal with the specific teaching related aspects of modern distance education both in the traditional teaching setting as well as in the corporate training sector. While the specialization focuses on teaching and training, there are close links to technology related aspects (for example, instructional design) as well as specific management related aspects (intellectual property, accreditation, and quality assurance).

Career Path

The MDE is a post-graduate program. The overall mission of the program is to educate leaders and managers of distance education and e-learning – a rapidly developing and expanding field.

The professional profile itself is developing and, consequently, job titles are often generic (such as ‘program director’). One needs to read a job description to find out the necessary details about the tasks and job requirements.

Many graduates bring with them competencies from their first degree and professional experience on which they may want to build. For example, some graduates with a technical background, may find that the MDE provides just the ‘added value’ to qualify them as a technical director in a training institution. Such a position would not be available to all MDE graduates, nor would the position be available without the MDE (or an equivalent degree). The careers available for the MDE graduates and their level may also depend on prior experiences and qualifications. (It may, however, be the case that a MDE graduate of the policy & management specialization who has prior specialist ICT competencies may be eligible as technical director.)

The Master of Distance Education program serves a number of careers at mid-, or high-level positions, depending on the prior level of experience of the candidate.

Distance Education Teaching and Training

Graduates of the distance education teaching and training specialization, depending on their background, can find positions such as:

  • Online teacher/tutor/trainer in a management or supervisory function (for example, sets up online courses or programs, including the selection of appropriate technology (asynchronous vs. synchronous; type of learning management system; selection of appropriate learning scenarios)
  • Pedagogical expert (online learning); Coordinator of Online Instruction
    (for example, advises content experts to redesign content for specific use in an online course format; retrains teacher or tutor successfully in an online environment)
  • Online librarian/resource manager (for example, sets up resource centers for distance teaching institution; advises on copyright and intellectual property issues)
  • Program evaluator/educational consultant (for example, prepares programs for accreditation by evaluating program components; often works as consultant for international organizations)
  • Subject matter expert (SME) for DE (for example, teaches/tutors courses on various aspects of distance education)

Requirements

Recommendations

  • Students who wish to improve their graduate writing skills may take COMM 600, Academic Writing for Graduate Students (3).

Core Rules

  • OMDE 601 must be taken in the first semester.

Core Required Courses

UCSP 611 Introduction to Graduate Library Research Skills (0), to be taken within the first 6 credits of study.

  • OMDE 601 Foundations of Distance Education (3)
  • OMDE 603 Technology in Distance Education (3)
  • OMDE 610 Teaching and Learning in Online Distance Education (3)
  • OMDE 606 Costs and Economics of Distance Education (3)
  • OMDE 608 Learner Support in Distance Education and Training (3)

Distance Education Teaching and Training (DETT) Specialization

  • DETT 607 Instructional Design and Course Development in Distance Education (3)
  • DETC 620 Training and Learning with Multimedia (3)
  • DETT 611 Library and Intellectual Property Issues in Distance Education (3)
  • EDTC 650 Special Topics in Instructional Technology (3) (Prerequisite: DETC 620)
  • DETT 621 Training at a Distance (3)
  • DETT 615 Assessment and Quality Assurance in Distance Education (3)

Capstone Course: OMDE 670 Portfolio and Project in Distance Education (3)

Note: Some course names and numbers were updated beginning with the fall 2007 semester. If you began the program prior to fall 2007 and have chosen to follow your original, pre-fall 2007 requirements, you should use the pre-fall 2007 Study Plan for this degree.