Online Master’s Degree Clicking With Students

Cal State Fullerton officials expect at least 20 students to register for the university’s first master’s degree program to be offered almost entirely online.

The online master of science program in instructional design and technology will be launched this fall.

“This is the wave of the future,” coordinator JoAnn Carter-Wells said. “It’s a program for working professionals that will allow them to work at their own pace and in their own time.”

The program was created in response to a growing demand from military personnel, industry professionals and teachers for advanced education in instructional design, she said. The 20-month program will train students to, among other things, create complex multimedia presentations for educational purposes.

“People are being asked more and more to design programs that can be delivered in a multimedia fashion, and most of them don’t have the background,” she said.

Ultimately, she said, the program will prepare graduates for careers as software consultants, instructional technology trainers and instructional designers.

“It will have a heavy application component,” Carter-Wells said, “so that people in a work setting can develop something they can utilize.”

Though students will be required to attend a two-day campus orientation and return midway through the program for a 1 1/2-day symposium, most work will be done over the Internet. Students will be expected to spend six to 10 hours a week working on each course, 10 of which are required for graduation, Carter-Wells said.

Two other California State University campuses--Hayward and Sacramento--have similar programs, Carter-Wells said, but Fullerton’s will be the first offered to professionals other than teachers.