EUGENE–The University of Oregon’s march into the realm of Internet-based cyber-education has reached a milestone. The Applied Information Management (AIM) Online master’s degree program will be the UO’s first ever graduate degree program offered completely via the Internet.

AIM Online, available for students next fall, is being developed as part of the Learning Anywhere Anytime Program (LAAP), a statewide research project established through the Oregon University System. The federal Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) awarded the program $124,250. An additional grant of $57,000 comes from eCollege.com, a private, Denver-based online learning provider.

The successful classroom-based AIM program has been available to graduate students in the Portland metropolitan area for 14 years and is currently offered at the CAPITAL Center in Beaverton. Both the onsite and the new online programs are designed to serve mid-career professionals from a wide variety of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, who are interested in managing information within the workplace. AIM Online’s grant funds support faculty in converting existing AIM graduate curriculum for online delivery.

"The AIM program is based on the belief that information managers must have more than an understanding of new technologies. To meet the challenges of the future, they must combine knowledge in management, business and visual communications with an awareness of high technology and its global context," says Linda Ettinger, AIM academic director and grant project coordinator. "Offering this kind of degree over the Internet is a natural extension of these ideas."

AIM offers innovative graduate study in management education as an alternative to the traditional Master of Business Administration or a master’s degree in computer science. Developed in association with several Oregon industries, the courses are taught by faculty from a number of Oregon colleges and universities, as well as by experts from the professional sector.

The anticipated benefits of AIM Online are substantial.

"An immediate benefit is to make this very successful graduate degree program available to students outside the Portland Metro area," Ettinger says. "By putting the program online it will be available to qualified candidates from throughout the state of Oregon as well as to those from beyond this region."

"In addition to being a useful program for students, AIM Online is contributing data to the larger research project with other Oregon colleges and universities so that we can study important and practical questions about online education," Ettinger says. "The combined results of our work will tell us a great deal about teaching and learning over the Internet, the technical requirements for doing so, and the academic standards that must support this approach to education. What we learn through LAAP will inform the future of this and other online educational experiences."

For more information about AIM, check the web site at http://aim.uoregon.edu.

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