Western Governors University

The university was created as a non-profit, online, competency-based university to expand access to affordable higher education as a supplement to state higher education systems. It was created with two key guiding principles: 1) To develop a model for competency-based education that would measure learning rather than time, and tie the competencies being taught to workplace needs. 2) To use technology to create a new business model in higher education that would increase the productivity of higher education (high quality education at lower cost) while expanding access.

Peripatetic electronic teachers in higher education

Most people would agree that the role of teachers in higher education will be changed by the advent of modern information and communication technology (ICT). At the very least open and distant learning (ODL) will become an established feature of educational provision rather than a specialist aspect. This is already evident in the increasing use of ODL in combination with conventional forms of course delivery by universities. More radically it is claimed that there will be a fundamental change in the nature of educational institutions, leading to the notion of virtual university, e.g. the Western Governors University (http://www.wgu.ed). These claims have in common the notion of utilizing the distributed nature of ICT to provide partnerships between teachers and learners that are not defined by either spatial or temporal constraints.DOI: 10.1080/0968776990070306

Western Governors University and Competency-Based Education

Western Governors University (WGU) was formally established in 1996 by the governors of 19 western states. From its inception it was committed to delivering all of its programs through distance technologies and to graduating its students only on the basis of their demonstrated competency. It is today the only regionally accredited university in the United States to award its degrees exclusively on this basis. Developing the university and proving its viability, however, have not been easy. The enthusiasm surrounding its launching in 1996 rapidly gave way to the hard realities of establishing a new educational paradigm. Within five years, after accreditation seemed slow in coming and enrollments in the new university even slower, many in the higher education establishment wrote WGU off as a failed experiment. Some even breathed a sigh of relief that the claims of competencybased education could be written off. But eight years after its formal incorporation, WGU is very much alive. It has received national accreditation from the Distance Education and Training Council (2001) and unprecedented regional accreditation by four of the nation’s regional accrediting associations.1 No other institution in the history of American higher education has received multi-regional accreditation, and given the complexities of such reviews, WGU achieved that milestone in a remarkably short time. By January 2005 the university had an enrollment just over 3,200 students and was growing by more than 200 students a month.

Western Governors University and Competency-Based Education

Western Governors University (WGU) was formally established in 1996 by the governors of 19 western states. From its inception it was committed to delivering all of its programs through distance technologies and to graduating its students only on the basis of their demonstrated competency. It is today the only regionally accredited university in the United States to award its degrees exclusively on this basis.

Western Governors University and Competency-Based Education

Western Governors University (WGU) was formally established in 1996 by the governors of 19 western states. From its inception it was committed to delivering all of its programs through distance technologies and to graduating its students only on the basis of their demonstrated competency. It is today the only regionally accredited university in the United States to award its degrees exclusively on this basis.