The Best Online Universities in Canada for 2023 The history of online education turned a big corner in March 2020. In that month, the World ...
The Best Online Universities in Canada for 2023
The history of online education turned a big corner in March 2020. In that month, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that COVID-19 was a global pandemic. This caused Canada’s postsecondary institutions to upgrade (or adopt) online learning platforms and make available to remote learners everything from part-time bookkeeping classes to nursing degree programs. Plans to digitize programs and courses went from taking years to just a few weeks.
Since the pandemic, there are many more ways to learn online, including new self-paced courses, live online seminars, Augmented Reality (AR) science labs, and a lot of hybrid options. This newfound freedom also increased the number of older students looking for ways to improve their skills or start completely new careers. During this time, the number of people looking for virtual career training programs on CourseCompare went up by almost 200%.
And because of the pandemic, universities, professors, and students have all had to learn more about how technology can make learning better and more fair. For some students, like those who have families, full-time jobs, or disabilities, the only alternative to distance learning is not going to college at all.
But we also learned that if technology isn’t used right, it can make people feel alone and stop them from having the kinds of social interactions that are important for learning. This is why it’s so important for Canadian universities to keep pushing the limits, combining new technologies and changing teaching methods to create highly interactive and engaging learning experiences that mimic the best of learning in person, no matter where their students are.
Teams or Slack? Cohort-based, self-paced, or all at the same time? Two or twenty mics in the classroom? With so many new online options and ways to get them, it might be hard to decide which of Canada’s online universities and programs are best for you. CourseCompare looked at how online education in Canada is changing and made a list of the best online universities for 2023.
1. Laurentian University
Laurentian University is proud of its unique approach to education, which comes from its location in Northern Ontario. It is the only university in Canada with a bilingual and tricultural mandate, offering courses in both English and French to meet the needs of Indigenous learners in postsecondary education.
Laurentian Online has a similar variety of 26 degree programs and over 350 courses, including undergraduate degrees in criminology, sociology, forensic identification, business administration, and Indigenous social work, as well as an MBA and a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner M.Sc. program.
Professional development and getting a certificate online Microcredentials cover specialties like finding and analyzing fingerprints, managing and investigating fire scenes, cardiac care, palliative care, and making surveys that work well.
2. Athabasca University
Athabasca University, which is in Alberta, was the first university in Canada to focus on online education. When it opened in 1973 as Canada’s first open, mail-based university, the school was a real leader in the field of distance learning.
AU has over 50 undergraduate and graduate programs that offer diplomas, degrees, and certificates in business, health, humanities, and sciences. These programs include architecture, accounting, data analytics, information security, finance, health administration, and both post-LPN and post-RN nursing degrees. There is also a focused menu of professional development programs, courses, and microcredentials, with training in areas like project management, digital innovation, workplace wellness, and AI ethics.
3.Fredericton University (UFred)
The University of Fredericton, or UFred, opened in 2005 as a private, for-profit school. The school in New Brunswick has made a name for itself because of its business and leadership programs. Its programs, like the administration, faculty, and staff of the University, are run entirely online.
UFred only works online. Its Sandermoen School of Business and School of Occupational Health and Safety offer a limited number of certificate, degree, and diploma programs (OHS). Some of the certificates and diplomas you can get from OHS courses are in psychological health and safety, OHS and environmental systems, and ergonomics.
The Master of Business Administration, on the other hand, is the most popular program at UFred and is always at the top of CourseCompare’s list of the best online MBA programs. Students can choose from nine specializations in leadership, such as innovation, consulting, professional selling, HR, business analytics, and cybersecurity. The program is broad and covers many different fields. There are also Pre-MBA, Executive MBA, and MBA certificates for people who want to be leaders at any point in their careers.
4. Queen’s College
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, was the first university in North America to offer courses by mail. This started in 1889. Today, more than 4,000 students “attend” Queens online and earn diplomas, degrees, certificates, and microcredentials in a wide range of subjects.
Queens offers more than 140 online courses in 10 schools, including arts and sciences, education, health sciences, engineering and applied science, law, and its prestigious Smith School of Business, as well as many graduate degrees.
There are a lot of microcredentials that can help your career, and 19 of them are free self-directed courses. Some of these courses are neuroscience for neurotech, behavioral assessment techniques, and entrepreneurship.
5. Waterloo University
The University of Waterloo is known as one of the most innovative postsecondary schools in Canada. It was also one of the first schools to offer online classes. Since 1997, when Wikipedia didn’t exist yet, the Ontario university has been offering web-based learning.
Since then, its Centre for Extended Learning has built a huge course catalog with over 600 courses in 40 undergraduate and postgraduate fields, such as arts, engineering, environmental, health, mathematics, and science. These courses cover a wide range of topics, such as the history of the Internet, how to be successful at work, applied epidemiology, business law, and Vikings! (Yes, there is an exclamation point in the name of the course.)
Waterloo also offers more than 170 online professional development courses and certificate programs in programs like business administration, computers and IT, languages, project management, sales and marketing, writing and publishing, and more.
6. University of Western Canada (UCW)
University Canada West is a private school that focuses on teaching students about business and careers. Since it opened in 2004 as a for-profit school in Vancouver, the institution has become known for its innovative career-building programs that focus on leadership and persuasive business communication.
The course list at UCW is small and very focused. There are only two bachelor’s programs: commerce and business communication. Its most popular course is the online masters in business administration. This is a two-year program that uses tools, projects, and technology from top sources like Facebook Blueprint, Salesforce, Shopify, Riipen, and the Digital Marketing Institute. When they finish the MBA, students also get certifications from DMI and Facebook in digital marketing.
People who want to boost their careers in small ways can also choose from a menu of online microcredentials that focus on business. These include blockchain entrepreneurship, data and web analytics, online e-commerce, and corporate social responsibility.
7. Royal Roads University
Royal Roads University is a public school that is mostly for postgraduates and older students. Its learning models are made to work with busy schedules and jobs. RRU’s online and blended programs, which have been around since the 1990s, allow about 70% of students to keep their jobs while they study.
RRU offers 20 fully online and 57 blended programs in business, communication, environmental science, executive education, leadership, tourism and hospitality management, and more. In keeping with the fact that most of the students are older and working, the course catalog focuses on business, management, and leadership. Programs start with a mandatory, non-credit course on academic integrity.
8. McGill University
McGill University in Montreal is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in the country and one of the most difficult to get into. A survey done in 2021 found that McGill had the best average grades of any university in Canada, with 86% for arts and 91–93% for sciences.
But McGill’s online offerings are mostly focused on professional development courses and certificate programs in fields like agile project management, data analytics for business, applied cybersecurity, graduate ESL, and Indigenous business management. There are diplomas in both public administration and governance and legal translation. The university just started an online Bachelor of Nursing program, but it’s only for people who have finished the nursing program at Quebec’s CEGEP.
McGillX is another online platform that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs). These are free, flexible learning opportunities that anyone can take. For a fee of $62, participants can get verified certificates.
9. Thompson Rivers University
Thompson Rivers University’s approach to learning is built on four main pillars: access, flexibility, choice, and credibility. The school in B.C. uses the open model and tries to make postsecondary education as easy to get into as possible by having few admission requirements and letting people sign up for most programs at any time.
Students at TRU have a lot of options, with over 60 programs like the arts, business and management, education, health sciences, nursing, science, social work, trades and technology, tourism, and more. Adult Basic Education is a free program that helps students who want to go to TRU meet some of the requirements or get their high school diploma.
10. The University of Mount Royal
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