Online education at Oregon State University received recognition for its greatness. This month, OSU’s Ecampus ranked eighth out of more than 300 online programs, and the master of engineering in industrial engineering program also ranked nationally.

OSU’s Ecampus has been ranked nationally for the third consecutive year. In the last academic year, over 60 percent of students at OSU took some form of Ecampus course.

The Ecampus has over 1000 courses, over 3000 students that have received a degree with the program and over 600 faculty members.

“We have a great group of instructional designers and multimedia folk that we partner with and the faculty to build the online courses,” Director of Marketing for the Ecampus, Jessica Dupont said. “We currently have over 1000 credit courses available online and about 50 online programs from the undergraduate and graduate.”

Dupont explains that there is a variety of students that get online degrees through Ecampus.

“Our classes have a mix of both adult nonresidentials as well of some of the traditional campus-based learners,” Dupont said.

Dupont expresses wanting to spread education in more places than just Corvallis.

“We are trying to be a leader in online education, not just in the state but regionally and nationally and this is a nice acknowledgment of those efforts,” Dupont said.

The Course Training and Development member of Ecampus Shannon Riggs explains some of the misconstrued ideas of online courses and what students who take online courses should know.

“Students might be confused and think that courses online are easier, but they aren’t. There is quite a bit of engagement and learning community with student and faculties,” Riggs said.

Riggs discusses the changes they have made since being ranked over the years.

“We continually add more programs and more courses and the expertise of our staff,” Riggs said. “We also are improving the quality. One of the major changes was Blackboard to Canvas, that was a very positive change, we are pleased that we are able to do that 24/7 tech support.”

Interim Associate Provost, Division of Extended Campus & Executive Director, Extended Campus Lisa Templeton weighs in on her reaction of being ranked and explains the hard work that everyone puts in.

“The faculty at OSU are teaching the courses and interacting with the students,” Templeton. “Everyone works very hard, and everyone is very busy, and it is a lot of work to develop the quality online course and program, and so we are obviously really excited to be recognized for our hard work and that the hard work is paying off.”