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News Dongseo University Approved to Offer Fully Online Bachelor’s Degree

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2023-03-29 10:36

Dongseo University Approved to Offer Fully Online Bachelor’s Degree
On March 23rd, the Ministry of Education announced that after rigorous screening it had approved Dongseo University as well as three other universities for accreditation for fully online bachelor’s degree programs under the "Third General University Online Degree Program." Seven universities had applied, but only four were granted final approval for the operation of their proposed programs. The Ministry of Education explained that it formed a judging committee with experts in fields such as distance education, internationalization, applied AI, and smart factories, and the committee comprehensively reviewed the remote class quality management systems submitted by universities before granting final approval.

Dongseo University's Department of Cultural Content Management was approved for its fully online, four-year general university program. Daejeon Woosong University's SolBridge Management was likewise approved for its four-year general Digital BBA program. The two professional university programs that were granted official approval were Dongeui Science University's Smart Production Process Management and Daegu Suseong University's AI Big Data.

These four universities will begin enrolling students in their newly accredited, fully online bachelor’s degree programs starting in 2024. This will be the first time that any Korean university other than a cyber university will operate a fully online bachelor's degree program, from lectures to final exams. Starting in 2021, Korean universities were permitted to apply for accreditation for fully online master's degree programs and joint bachelor's degree programs with foreign universities. Then in 2022, Korean universities could also apply to operate fully online bachelor's degree programs, either exclusively or jointly with other Korean universities. However, while 27 master’s programs from 22 graduate universities made it through the screening process last year, there were no applications from Korean universities for fully online bachelor's degree programs in 2022.

Currently, fully online degree programs can be set up by Korean universities after being approved by the Ministry of Education. Korean universities operating fully online bachelor's degree programs, either independently or jointly with other Korean universities, are limited to 21 high-tech new technology fields such as artificial intelligence (AI). There are no restrictions on the field of study when online degree programs are operated jointly with foreign universities.

Dongseo University will operate its fully online bachelor’s degree program to train K-culture content professionals jointly with Lithuania's MRU University. Likewise, Woosong University will run its bachelor's degree program jointly with Indonesia's SGU. Dongeui Science University and Suseong University, which are professional universities, will run their bachelor's degree programs in high-tech fields without joint operation.