Beginning in February, students from around the world will be able to learn about how innovation and technology is impacting people in the North thanks to a new online course at the University of Saskatchewan.
The circumpolar innovation course will be offered through the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development.
It is a truly open online course meaning the course is open to anyone, free of charge and all course-related materials can be downloaded and shared without fees.
ICNGD Director Ken Coates says it is clear that northern people are falling behind in terms of seeing the benefits of innovation and technology and he hopes the course may be able to help find solutions to bridge the gap.
“The North is falling behind the rest of the world,” he says. “So, unless we do something deliberately the innovation gap between urban centres in the South generally will get much larger and people in the North will feel even more disadvantaged then they do at present.”
He also says the U of S hopes the course will lead to the development of similar for-credit courses at other universities around the world.
“Just to use an example from say Russia, any Russian university that wanted to could download the entire content from our TOOC, add in some Russian assignments, some Russian writing work that has to be done, some final exams and use our course entirely for their own purposes and give credit at a Russian institution.”
The circumpolar innovation course will also be offered to ICNGD students in a for-credit format.