Lisa L. Templeton, Vice Provost of the Division of Educational Ventures
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-9204 or 800-667-1465
Email: ecampus@oregonstate.edu
Website: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu
Ecampus – Top-ranked degrees, certifcates and microcredentials online
As a leader in online education, Oregon State University Ecampus — a part of the Division of Educational Ventures — works with OSU faculty to provide access to high-quality learning experiences that transform the lives of students in Oregon and around the world. The quality of Ecampus programs and courses has contributed to rising enrollment: Nearly 1 in 3 Oregon State students now learn exclusively online. Thousands of students enroll in Ecampus online courses each year, all of which are developed by Oregon State faculty. In the 2022-23 academic year, more than 30,000 OSU students took at least one Ecampus class online.
OSU Ecampus is widely regarded as one of America's best providers of online education. In January 2024, Oregon State’s online bachelor’s programs were for the 10th straight year. This recognition is based on student engagement; faculty credentials and training; services and technology; and expert opinion.
Programs and Courses
Students interested in learning online with Oregon State can choose from more than 100 degrees, programs and microcredentials. The complete collection of online and hybrid offerings include:
- Undergraduate degrees
- Graduate degrees
- Microcredentials and certificates
- Undergraduate and graduate minors
- Course sequences
- 1,750+ courses
The Students we Serve
There are Oregon State students learning online on every continent in the world except Antarctica. Ecampus serves OSU students in all 50 states and nearly 60 countries worldwide. OSU’s online learners include full- and part-time students, working professionals, stay-at-home parents, community college students, active-duty and retired military plus their dependents and residents of rural communities.
More than 12,000 Oregon State students have earned their degrees online through Ecampus since 2002.
How we Support Students
Oregon State Ecampus offers a variety of support services that meet students’ needs and help them along the path to graduation.
The Ecampus enrollment services team provides a personal connection to OSU Ecampus for prospective applicants. Enrollment services specialists answer questions via phone, email and live chat about OSU Ecampus online programs and offerings, the application process, transfer credits and how to get started.
Once enrolled online, Ecampus students have access to student services specialists; a team of success coaches; a dedicated Ecampus librarian and 24/7 library support; remote exam proctoring; OSU's Disability Access Services; and live, around-the-clock technical support on OSU’s learning management system, Canvas.
Success coaching is an academic counseling service for undergraduate Ecampus students, and it employs an individualized, strengths-based and holistic approach. Success coaches work in partnership with students to improve academic skills, to identify support resources, and to address obstacles to academic success at OSU.
In 2024, the Quality Matters program honored Oregon State with its Online Learner Support Certification. The certification lasts for a period of five years and applies to all programs delivered online by Ecampus. It recognizes programs that provide “all the critical student and academic services needed for learner success and use learner feedback to continuously improve those services.
A Commitment to Quality
All curricula for Ecampus courses and degree programs are designed by Oregon State faculty and are held to the same rigorous academic standards as the university’s on-campus classes. OSU is institutionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, and all Ecampus students who complete degree requirements receive the same diploma and transcript as campus-based students.
Services for Faculty
Ecampus works closely with more than 1,200 Oregon State faculty members, program leads and department heads in order to provide students with transformative educational opportunities. The Ecampus staff offers an array of services, including a faculty development and training program that is comprehensive, responsive, and flexible.
Ecampus requires ongoing training for faculty developing and teaching online courses. Faculty are expected to participate in training as part of the course development and redevelopment process, and to participate in ongoing training annually.
The Ecampus Faculty Forum is held each spring and allows faculty, administrators and staff to engage in discussions about online teaching excellence, research in online education, faculty experiences in online course development and more. Hundreds of OSU faculty, administrators and staff attend the event annually.
Ecampus also participates in the Quality Matters program, which seeks to improve student success in online courses by focusing on continuously improving course design. Using an independent and research-based peer review process, the faculty-driven QM program examines course design, not the content itself or the teaching.
Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, Director
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-4697
Email: maryellen.dellostritto@oregonstate.edu
Website: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/research
The OSU Ecampus Research Unit responds to and forecasts the needs and challenges of the online education field through conducting original research, fostering strategic collaborations and creating evidence-based resources and tools that contribute to effective online teaching, learning and program administration.
The Research Unit is part of the Division of Educational Ventures, and it prioritizes research on educational systems including quality, access and learner outcomes at multiple levels from students to administrators. The unit regularly publishes the results of national and local studies, and its research focuses on the following areas:
- Investigating factors contributing to faculty and student success
- Building communities to support and encourage research networks
- Promoting research literacy and evidence-based decision-making
To support student success, the unit released the Learning Skills Journey Tool in 2024. This tool defines the skills needed for lifelong learning and helps individuals assess where they can grow and improve. Designed through a collaborative research study conducted by OSU and Brigham Young University, the tool helps administrators and advisors more quickly and accurately evaluate learning skills gaps in order to offer students targeted interventions and recommendations.
To build research networks, the unit has also administered the Online Teaching and Learning Research Seminars program. This program supports multi-institutional research on topics related to online teaching and learning. In 2023, program participants from multiple institutions published a study examining multi-stakeholder perspectives on learning analytics data and how it is used to understand students’ experiences. In 2024, national and international program participants completed meta-analytic reviews of online student motivation and synchronous instructor presence.
The unit also houses the Ecampus Research Fellows program, a competitive, internal grants program that funds OSU faculty to conduct original research in online teaching and learning. The program has funded 66 faculty members to complete 42 projects across nine different colleges since its 2016 inception. To learn about the outcomes of these funded projects, read the Research Fellows white paper series.
To promote evidence-based decision making, ECRU also maintains the Online Learning Efficacy Research Database, a repository of academic studies that allows users to explore whether the learning outcomes of online education are equivalent to face-to-face environments. As of April 2024, the database has 295 citations across 79 discrete disciplines from 211 academic journals.
Stefanie Buck, Director
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-7403
Email: stefanie.buck@oregonstate.edu
Website: https://open.oregonstate.edu
To make college more affordable and accessible for students, the Open Educational Resources Unit (OERU) works with all university faculty to create openly licensed course materials that are freely available to all students. The OERU encourages and supports faculty in using no-cost or low-cost (less than $40) course materials. Since 2019, Oregon State students have saved more than $18 million in course material costs thanks to OSU faculty and their work with the OERU staff.
The OERU, bolstered by Oregon State’s reputation as a national leader in online teaching and learning, has established a competitive open educational resources (OER) program that focuses on reusable digital components. Oregon State faculty members partner and consult with the OERU to adopt, adapt and author open textbooks and other course materials that are freely available online to students, faculty and the general public. Since 2014, the OERU has published over 50 openly licensed textbooks that are in use not only at OSU but also worldwide.
As a unit within the Division of Educational Ventures, the OERU helps to make higher education more accessible for all students in various ways, including:
- Supporting all Oregon State academic colleges in developing affordable learning goals to lessen students’ financial burden.
- Providing Affordable Learning Grants for faculty who adopt, adapt or author free and openly licensed textbooks.
- Increasing faculty and student awareness of options for low-cost and no-cost course materials.
The OERU staff supports faculty in locating open-source materials, creating images, graphics and interactivities to incorporate into OER. Consultation on Creative Commons licensing is also available.
Learn how you and your department can partner with the OERU.
Howard Burns, Senior Director
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-0852
Email: howard.burns@oregonstate.edu
Website: https://educationalventures.oregonstate.edu/corporate-workforce-education
Through innovative collaborations, the Oregon State University Corporate and Workforce Education Unit provides working adults and organizations around the world with increased access to OSU’s in-demand learning opportunities online as well as on campus. The Corporate and Workforce Education Unit prioritizes understanding an organization or agency’s needs and collaboratively designs a program that meets an employer’s unique goals.
These corporate collaborations offer employees upskilling opportunities that align with an employer’s innovation goals, drive employee retention and enhance individuals' economic agility by enabling them to enroll in skills-based microcredentials, certificates and full degree programs that provide hands-on learning and prepare them to succeed.
As part of the Division of Educational Ventures, the Corporate and Workforce Education Unit understands the challenges faced by working adult learners and provides a portfolio of services alongside the employee’s entire academic journey at Oregon State. This includes enrollment services, student success coaching, student services, academic advising and more.
The Corporate and Workforce Education Unit designs a customized process for every unique collaboration, ensuring a thriving arrangement that benefits employees and employers. By learning online with Oregon State, employees receive upward career mobility and financial support, while organizations often gain increased employee retention and more highly skilled workers.
Current Oregon State corporate collaborators include Amazon, Guild, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, EdAssist by Bright Horizons, Samaritan Health Services, the Canadian Football League Players’ Association, the Professional Hockey Players’ Association and Peet’s Coffee.
The Corporate and Workforce Education Unit is focused on positively impacting the lives of adult learners as they gain new skills and obtain more rewarding career opportunities that elevates their earnings. Learn more about the OSU Corporate and Workforce Education Unit.
Devin Miles, Director
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-6757
Email: devin.miles@oregonstate.edu
Website: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/microcredentials
Oregon State University is leading the way in the delivery of alternative credentials, which are short-term educational pathways leading to specialized skills and knowledge that help students advance their careers. Examples of alternative credentials include microcredentials, short-term certificates and digital badges.
Oregon State’s new Alternative Credentials Unit is part of the Division of Educational Ventures, and it aims to offer high-quality, cost-effective programs that support OSU’s strategic vision for the future. These credentials focus on specific skill sets that are relevant to particular industries, providing practical experience across various in-demand areas with an emphasis on reskilling, upskilling and career progression. OSU alternative credentials allow students to explore different academic and career interests and will often allow students to stack credentials, moving from microcredentials to certificates and full degree programs.
Students who enroll in alternative credentials receive the same transformative learning experiences that Oregon State is known for, they engage in a supportive student environment that fosters success.
Once a person completes the microcredential requirements at Oregon State, they receive a digital badge that demonstrates enhanced skill set and discipline-specific knowledge to current and future employers. You can learn more about OSU’s microcredentials.
Kate Porsche, Director
4943 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331-4504
Phone: 541-737-7764
Email: kate.porsche@oregonstate.edu
Website:https://outdooreconomy.oregonstate.edu
The Center for the Outdoor Recreation Economy offers innovative workforce development experiences to meet the demands of the vast, entrepreneurial and rapidly growing outdoor recreation industry and maximize its impact.
CORE, which is a part of the Division of Educational Ventures, works with outdoor recreation businesses, associations and industry groups — as well as state and federal agency partners — to develop educational, leadership and workforce training programs to grow the outdoor recreation industry’s workforce. The center also engages in research to support outdoor recreation workforce needs.
Through the creation of alternative credentials, access to traditional degree paths in relevant fields or customized noncredit programs, CORE takes a holistic approach to developing a workforce knowledge and skills pipeline in the outdoor recreation industry. In close collaboration with industry partners, the center’s offerings aim to address global skills gaps and challenges in recruiting and retaining a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce.
CORE is dedicated to meeting industry needs and connecting the outdoor recreation economy to its full economic, social and environmental potential. It offers in-demand courses, including Foundations of the Outdoor Recreation Economy, Ski Lift Maintenance Technician Training, and Elevate Outdoors, which is designed to foster more inclusive and accessible experiences.
CORE also participates in the National Outdoor Recreation Workforce Development Consortium, a group of universities focused on creating solutions for this workforce.
