Arizona Universities Collaborate on Distance Learning
With the demand for online degree course work growing dramatically, the University of Arizona and its sister schools, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University have announced a joint venture that will link all online degree course offerings at each respective school.
Called the Arizona Universities Network, or AZUN for short, the new structure will replace the Arizona Regents University (ARU) which will be temporarily put on hold. Created just five years ago, ARU had been created as an entirely online university, designed to be a completely separate entity that would offer its own online degrees.
Making the new AZUN system especially attractive is a course credit reciprocity given to students at any of the three university campuses. The critical component of the new structure is that online courses originating at one campus can be counted toward the degree program for students at the other campuses.
Taking classes online serves to eliminate two critical issues for students. First, an online course need not follow any specific time schedule, eliminating the chance that two student class choices could conflict with one another. In addition, by allowing the students to select from any online course at any of the three institutions, the course offering options are also greatly enhanced.
Currently, most course work is still supplemental to a student's core requirements, but students can accelerate their programs by taking such complimentary offerings, reducing the need to attend college for a full eight semesters for many individual.
At this time, of the three collaborating schools, only Northern Arizona University offers a degree program that can be completed entirely online. However, NAU has expanded its offerings to include 13 different bachelor degree programs.
By Thomas Hanson
Sep 26, 2005, 22:01
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