Great Plains IDEA

From Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education

The Great Plains IDEA (Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance, GPIDEA) supports purely online master's degree and postgraduate Certificates, via a consortium of large public US universities.

Degrees and/or certificates are available in topics such as community development, food safety & defense, gerontology and more.

A recent WCET report estimates 1,081 distinct students during 2008.

The university partners are:

Colorado State University, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Michigan State University, University of Missouri, Montana State University, University of Nebraska, North Dakota State University, Oklahoma State University, South Dakota State University, Texas Tech University

The Great Plains IDEA web site states:

The Great Plains IDEA is an award-winning multi-state alliance lead by Human Sciences Colleges, founded in 1994, as a means to create a marketplace for sharing distance education courses and programs at the graduate level. Combining today’s emerging technologies with program-based alliances, it utilizes the growing field of distance education to connect students around the country and afford them the opportunity to be admitted to one member institution and study at other member institutions via Internet-based courses.

Great Plains IDEA students are typically working adults. Students select a "home" institution to apply to; they then enroll in all courses through that university. Courses are offered via different systems, per university.

The Great Plains IDEA's main office is in Kansas, US, based at Kansas State University.

The GPIDEA web site is at http://www.hsidea.org/

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