Athabasca University provides Web world for unique University of the Arctic course

Athabasca University Media Release

February 15, 2002 - As part of the world partnership supporting the University of the Arctic, Athabasca University has created a web environment for students in BCS 100: An Introduction to the Circumpolar World. Drawing on over 30 years experience in distance course design and recent innovations in online learning, Athabasca University has developed the Web site for students in this unique multidisciplinary course. Twenty-seven students at six northern sites -- in Canada, Greenland, Finland, and Russia -- are participating in the on-line pilot of the course.

"We're very pleased with our contribution to this exciting project," says Dr. Judith Hughes, Vice President Student Services at AU and Chair of the Arctic Learning Environment. "Athabasca University is in a unique position to provide assistance to the course development and delivery."

An introductory university-level course, BCS 100 examines the world's northernmost peoples and places and the issues they face. The fifteen modules that comprise the course cover such topics as traditional and western knowledge systems, the region's unusual geography, the dominant physical and biological processes, northern peoples and their history, environmental and climate change, economics, the spiritual and aesthetic, indigenous rights and new political structures, and new forms of northern cooperation.

"Developing the course has been a cooperative effort," notes Jón Haukur Ingimundarson, a Senior Scientist with Iceland's Stefansson Institute and Co-chair of the circumpolar team that has developed the course. "Over twenty individuals from all eight northern nations have helped with the curriculum. Athabasca University has provided the web expertise and developed the web site. UNBC is registering the students. Yukon College is providing the instructor. Grid-Arendal in Norway has provided much of the technical environmental material. The University of Lapland is doing the comprehensive evaluation. And each of the six test sites -- including Ilisimatusarfik in Nuuk, Greenland and Yakutsk State University in Yakutsk -- are providing their students with the necessary computer resources. Everyone, including funders like the Government of Canada and the Scandinavian Seminar Group, is contributing."

Offering the course to students spread from Yukon to Greenland and Lapland to Russia has presented some interesting technical challenges. "Just the differences in time zones alone can be intimidating," says Dr. Hughes. "As a result, we've opted for what's called an asynchronous mode of delivery. Students can visit the course site at any time, read the instructor's comments, and contribute to the threaded discussions. This model will ensure that students will get to 'meet' each other. We want Canadian students to interact with Russian students, Finnish students to interact with Greenlandic students, and so on."

"We in the North have so much in common," notes Claudia Fedorova, the site coordinator at Yakutsk State University in Siberia, "yet we are separated by such great distances. It is instructional opportunities like this one that will allow our students to meet and learn from each other." The course instructor, Amanda Graham, agrees, "Instead of teaching a small group of students in Whitehorse, I've got students from all over the Circumpolar World. It's an affordable way to bring the northern world to our home communities and vice versa. The future looks bright."