MAYNOOTH, 22 June 2002: by Michael Freeman. Maynooth University is one of four third level colleges in ireland which are collaborating in the first National University of Ireland degree programme to be delivered by ‘e-learning’ across the Internet.
The new four year degree programme, which will commence in September, is the first NUI Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Rural Development in Ireland.
The initiative was launched by Éamon ÓCuiv TD, Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.
The degree has been developed and produced in a joint collaboration by the four constituent universities of the National University of Ireland - in Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Maynooth. The degree programme will be managed by the four universities from their new Virtual Centre of Excellence in Rural Development.
Dr Michael Ward, NUI Cork, Professor Jim Phelan, NUI Dublin, Professor Michael Cuddy, NUI Galway and Dr Ted Fleming, NUI Maynooth, form the academic steering group which developed the new degree programme.
The programme is aimed at people who are already highly involved in rural development and is designed to produce a new type of specialist graduate equipped with superior rural development, advisory, and management knowledge and skills. It offers thousands of people who are interested in rural development the opportunity to obtain a professional and academic qualification that acknowledges and advances their interest and their work whether as volunteers or as professionals.
Students can do the degree without leaving their homes or their local community while studying under the direction and guidance of Ireland’s best experts in the field of rural development. The students will access coursework for the degree through the Internet using advanced E- Learning methods, on-line classrooms and chat rooms developed and successfully tested here and in universities in the US.
From time to time, they will gather for lectures at local learning centres with local tutors. They will have back-up materials on CD. They will make direct contact with tutors on-line and they will inter-act with other students through protected on-line chat-rooms.
The degree, a distance learning programme in rural development, will have the same status throughout the world as a full time science degree from an NUI university.
