International collaboration on a sustainable forestry management OER online program - A case study

Abstract

Over time, forest education has had to adapt to keep up with global changes and to accommodate the needs of students and society. While facing pressing global issues like climate change, deforestation, illegal logging and food security, the role of higher forest education has shifted away from traditional teaching approaches and practices to methods that emphasize sustainable development, community-based management and environmental conservation in forestry. In doing so, forest education has cultivated human expertise that understands the complexity of ever-changing environments, masters state of the art technologies to manage forests and natural resources, and is capable of creating, communicating and implementing related policies in global communities and societies. In this context, educational technology and online learning enable flexible, accessible, effective, and high-quality forest education. A case study of a Sustainable Forest Management Online Program led by the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia (UBC) shows that appropriately integrating educational technologies into an internationally developed and recognized high quality curriculum is an effective way to create accessible and affordable forest education in meeting the demand of evolving societal and environmental conditions.