E-Learning in Canada
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IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING ITJ3462 701 E. ChocolateJournal Avenue, of Distance Suite 200, Education Hershey Technologies, PA 17033-1240, 5(1), USA 1-6, January-March 2007 1 Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com This paper appears in the publication, International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Volume 5, Issue 1 edited by Shi-Kuo Chang; Timothy K. Shih © 2007, Idea Group Inc. E-Learning in Canada Rory McGreal, Athabasca University, Canada Terry Anderson, Athabasca University, Canada A principal characteristic of the belonging to numerous diverse First Canadian experience with e-learning Nations communities. Moreover, almost is the uniquely Canadian feature of 25% of Canadians speak French as a first provincial jurisdiction over education. language and are mostly resident in the Canada is the only country that does not province of Quebec. Finally, Canada is have a national department or ministry an immigrant nation with major pockets of education. Therefore, any investiga- of immigrants residing in communities tion of e-learning in Canada must focus within the major metropolitan areas. more on specific provincial initiatives This creates geographic and cultural, in technologically enhanced learn- as well as linguistic, barriers that make ing rather than a Canadian overview. it difficult for people to communicate. In the best sense, Canada’s e-learn- These obstacles vary from province to ing programming can be viewed as a province and in the far northern territo- patchwork quilt made up of interesting ries. Addressing them requires different projects, programs, and initiatives. In approaches in different regions with the worst sense, it is a set of disparate diverse communities. and uncoordinated activities constantly Interest at the national level in struggling with and reinventing solu- e-learning was driven mainly through tions to problems solved elsewhere. increasing concern over the develop- Canada is a large country unlike ment of Canada’s “education industry.” any other. The vast majority of the CANARIE, Canada’s advanced Internet population lives in the south of the development organisation, has imple- country within 100 kilometres of the mented the world’s fastest Internet US border with scattered, remote, and backbone, CANet4, which spans the characteristically small communities country from east to west and includes spread throughout the vast northern isolated northern regions. This “super- regions. The majority of the population net” links public and private research in these remote regions are aboriginal, institutes, companies involved in re- Copyright © 2007, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 2 Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 5(1), 1-6, January-March 2007 search and development in information sites and human support to different technology, as well as higher education institutions delivering learning in their institutions. The now defunct Telelearn- respective provinces. ing Network of Centres of Excellence There is considerable activity in (1995 -2002) was a geographically e-learning in several provinces, while distributed network of researchers and others have very little. There is also a client communities from across Canada, wide range of Canadian approaches who collectively researched the devel- depending on the level of education opment, application, and evaluation and the types of learning. The net- of advanced learning technologies. works described above represent one Finally, the federal, National Science approach. Other provincial networks and Engineering Research Council have also evolved to support the grow- has funded a 5-year Canadian research ing number of traditional universities project known as Lornet, a partnership that are offering some programs, or of six universities across Canada that parts of programs, over the Internet. is developing interoperability tools In fact, the majority of courses offered for e-learning based on semantic Web in Canadian universities now have at tools, IEEE LOM, SCORM, and other least some component of either World standards. Despite these federal initia- Wide Web content and/or require some tives, the provinces maintained their communications using e-mail. independence and continued to act au- This growing use of e-learning by tonomously, if not at cross purposes. institutions has stimulated the growth The first provincial initiatives can of collaborative networks or consortia, be traced back to the earliest prov- especially in the western provinces. ince-wide distance learning network The prairie province of Saskatchewan in Newfoundland, TETRA (Telehealth adopted a Technology Enhanced Learn- & Educational Technology Research ing (TEL) Action Plan in 1997, which Agency), in 1977; to the 1986 found- led to the creation of Campus Saskatch- ing of Contact North/Contact Nord ewan, a partnership model for promot- in Northern Ontario; and to the 1993 ing interinstitutional collaboration “to beginnings of the TeleEducation New achieve shared goals and priorities for Brunswick project. These uniquely the use of technology enhanced learn- Canadian networks began as audio and ing.” Campus Manitoba shares a similar audiographic networks using simple mandate in a neighbouring province teleconferencing and computing appli- with Inter-universities North, which cations and evolved into online e-learn- focuses on providing University-level ing networks as the Internet matured and programming in the more isolated com- the World Wide Web appeared. These munities of the North. BC Campus is an networks provide (or provided, in the online educational service in the west case of TeleEducation NB) e-learning coast province of British Columbia that Copyright © 2007, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 5(1), 1-6, January-March 2007 connects students and educators through sity of Waterloo has a long history of a single access point to online learning distance education and more recently resources available at BC institutions. has been the lead institution in the Co- In addition, BC Campus provides funds operative Learning Object Exchange competitively for e-learning content (CLOE), which is a collaboration among development and maintains a repository Ontario universities and colleges for for distribution of this electronic con- the development, sharing, and reuse of tent. eCampus Alberta is a consortium multimedia-rich learning resources us- of 15 colleges and technical institutes ing a common repository. We previously designed to stimulate and facilitate on- mentioned Contact North/Contact Nord line learning in the western mountain as a leading example of a collaborative province of Alberta. Alberta North is e-learning network. a complementary consortium serving Quebec, Canada’s only unilin- institutions in Alberta’s northern region gual French-speaking province has with participation in the Northwest supported the previously mentioned Territories. Nationally, the Canadian TÉLUQ as a leading open university. Virtual University consortium brings At the community college level the together the e-learning departments of newly named CÉGEPáDISTANCE twelve different universities in eight carries on a 15-year tradition of sup- provinces into a common Web site. porting distance education and e-learn- Alberta is a Canadian leader in ing.SOFAD (Société de Formation à e-learning with Athabasca University, Distance des Commissions Scolaires which is Canada’s only open univer- du Québec) produces adult distance sity or single-mode distance delivery learning courses. Canal Savoir (Corpo- institution. Previous open universi- ration pour l’Avancement de Nouvelles ties have been merged into traditional Applications des Langages) is Quebec’s universities, making them dual-mode. principal provider of televised distance The former British Columbia Open education courses from member univer- University is now a department of the sities, colleges, and telecommunications new Thompson Rivers University, and partners. Téléuniversité du Québec (TÈLUQ) is New Brunswick, Canada’s only now formally a part of the Université bilingual (French-English) province, du Québec à Montrèal. hosts distance education course offer- In Ontario, Canada’s most populous ings from the Université du Moncton, province, the government has left the a French-speaking university, and from decision making relating to e-learning the English-speaking University of New to the different institutions, from which Brunswick. The province is unique in a few leaders and interesting initiatives Canada in hosting two private sec- have emerged. TV Ontario produces tor e-learning universities delivering televised learning content. The Univer- graduate programs in business and Copyright © 2007, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 5(1), 1-6, January-March 2007 psychology at Lansbridge University es. Nevertheless, e-learning is expand- and Yorkville University, respectively. ing as the vast majority of universities The province also hosts the training/ and community colleges continue to mentoring department for Skillsoft, the expand their e-learning options for the largest e-learning company in the world. benefit of their students. The