Flexible Delivery Faculty of Nursing University of Alberta

What it is In the Faculty of Nursing Flexible Delivery refers to a wide range of instructional design strategies and communication technologies that may be used to increase educational opportunities and access by overcoming barriers of distance and time.

Why Flexible Delivery? Critical Nursing shortage both nationally and worldwide Shortage of nursing faculty to meet the country’s need for teachers Nurses are in such high demand they are unable to leave their positions to upgrade their education FD provides another method of providing educational opportunities for our learner community

Who are our students? Professors at institutions of higher education throughout the country and overseas seeking graduate degrees Professional nurses who are active in the field and want to upgrade their credentials High proportion of adult students who are returning to learning after stopping out of the workforce

How it began Flexible delivery approaches have been offered in nursing for more than 20 years by employing various technologies (e.g. audio conferencing) as well as through outreach activities In 2000 the Faculty formally created a Flexible Delivery PhD initiative designed to enable students at a distance to fulfill their graduate program requirements

What is the goal? To provide PhD students with: The opportunity to enroll in high quality PhD level courses offered by an internationally recognized Faculty of Nursing Individualized study plans designed to meet student needs and goals PhD level courses utilizing a variety of technologies to facilitate access by students on and off campus

Why a Flexible Delivery Office? To assist instructors in developing and adapting their teaching for this new learning environment To assist students in acquiring the skills and knowledge required to become competent distance learners To assist students and instructors to become part of a vital distributed community of scholars

We’ve Expanded Since the inception of the PhD initiative, the FoN has responded to continued demand for flexible delivery at all levels We continue to increase our course offerings at both the Graduate and Undergraduate levels We have, and continue to include Flexible Delivery in our strategic planning process

How do we do it? Courses incorporate a variety of distance delivery systems including: –On – line (WebCT Vista) –Videoconferencing –Teleconferencing –One-way video –Webcast We incorporate both synchronous and asynchronous activities We run both distance and blended courses

In addition, we use WebCT Vista tools to enhance our on-campus courses: –Grades –Fixed Resources (handouts, videos) –Conferencing –Resource sites –Research activities

What’s Important to Us? High level of Instructor and Student support Provide expertise to instructors for on-line course design and development as well as technical support Provide students with personal, ongoing support throughout the course…from orientation to final evaluation

What do we need? Central services to provide stable and reliable course software which enables us to offer a high level of service to our instructors and students Responsive technical support Effective information dissemination and communication from central services

Our Concerns Goal is to increase access to educational opportunities Continue to recognize and honour the needs of our target population Ensure we don’t widen the “digital divide” as we implement new technologies