Content Directions, a registered provider of the Digital Object Identifier, has agreed to supply Stevens Institute, an engineering school in Hoboken, N.J., with DOIs for online courses offered through its online degree program, WebCampus Stevens. The agreement is said to be the first to provide DOIs for educational courses.
Web-based degree programs allow students to study and submit assignments virtually around the clock, and the programs are proliferating. Schools adapt courses to the Web and then license them to other digital learning centers (including publishers with their own online educational programs). Since WebCampus Stevens launched in 2000, Stevens has been aggressive in developing its digital course program. The school was one of the first to offer its professors royalties based on the licensing of their online courses.
Now, according to Robert Ubell, dean of online learning at Stevens, Stevens is the first school to use the DOI to market its courses. The agreement will provide DOIs for 14 programs and more than 50 online courses offered under them. According to Patricia Titone, director of operations at Content Directions, when Stevens's courses are listed through online partnerships, the DOI link will offer a menu that shows course descriptions or reviews, related courses, tuition information and more. "It will give the consumer a rich assortment of information," she said.
