Thursday
Sep 26, 2013
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Post-secondary students across Alberta continue to embrace online learning
The latest numbers are in, and it's clear that online learning is changing lives for more and more Albertans.
Alberta's online education consortium of post-secondary institutions, eCampusAlberta, served 11,418 students during the previous 2012/13 academic year, resulting in an all-time high of 20,851 course registrations. This marks an increase of 13 per cent from 2011/12 registration levels and the ninth consecutive year of double digit annual growth.
"We're thrilled to see such strong growth, knowing that each registration is bringing an individual closer to meeting his or her educational goals," said Sharon Carry, President and CEO, Bow Valley College and Board Chair, eCampusAlberta.
"This year also saw our reach expand to 18 new communities in Alberta, bringing the total number served to more than 500," Carry said. The highest registration numbers were in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Fort McMurray, Sherwood Park, Red Deer, Airdrie, Grande Prairie, Spruce Grove, and St. Albert.As a portal to offerings from 19 member institutions, over 38 per cent of registrations came from students who were enrolled in online courses offered by institutions outside of their geographic service region - further evidence that eCampusAlberta continues to increase access for learners province-wide.
"eCampusAlberta was founded 11 years ago, and there have been a total of 97,097 registrations to date. We're looking forward to surpassing the 100,000 milestone this year," said Tricia Donovan, Executive Director, eCampusAlberta. "These numbers show that convenient, flexible, and high-quality online learning is exactly what many Albertans are looking for to jump-start or advance their careers."
eCampusAlberta is a consortium of 19 Alberta post-secondary institutions (11 colleges, six universities, and two polytechnics) that was established in 2002 to facilitate greater access to high quality online learning opportunities. The organization enables students from across the province to access over 70 accredited online certificate, diploma and applied degree programs and more than 900 individual courses offered by the member institutes. For more information, visit www.ecampusalberta.ca.
