Mississippi Virtual Community College
The Mississippi Virtual Community College (MSVCC) is a consortium of the 15 physical community colleges in the Mississippi system that allows students to take classes over the Internet from any community college located in the state. After almost three years of research and planning, MSVCC was inaugurated in January 2000 under the SBCJC Distance Learning program, and currently serves over 20,000 students each semester.
As an example of how the consortium works, a student from Northwest Community College (acting as host college) can take a class on the Internet offered from Pearl River Community College (acting as provider college). The host college supports the student with any other resources that they may need—including academic advising and counseling, financial aid, and campus network access—and the course credit from the provided class is subsequently awarded through the host college. Through this mechanism, the virtual community college provides an opportunity for students take classes that are not offered at their "home" college. Additional learning support is provided by the Mississippi Electronic Libraries Online (MELO), a shared resource hosted by the SBCJC that is made available to students and instructors through their respective campus networks and administered under the Distance Learning program.
The mission of the Mississippi Virtual Community College is to provide educational opportunities to constituencies who live within the various community and junior college districts in Mississippi and to others beyond those boundaries. The mission includes providing access to instructional offerings through advanced technologies for those individuals who currently cannot take advantage of the offerings of the community and junior college through traditional means and to those individuals who are seeking alternative educational delivery systems.
The MSVCC maintains an articulation agreement amongst all of its constituent community colleges that is explicitly designed to avoid drawing any distinction between online and traditional lecture courses in order to facilitate a unified curriculum systemwide. Accreditation of the MSVCC is maintained under the oversight of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Read more about this topic: Mississippi State Board For Community And Junior Colleges
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