Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy is offering the first academic program this quarter that allows students to earn a degree from the computer rather than the classroom.

Thirty-one students began course work in January as part of the inaugural class for the new Nontraditional PharmD Program. PharmD standing for Doctor of Pharmacy much like MD stands for Doctor of Medicine. It enables licensed, practicing pharmacists to earn a doctoral degree off campus and to give them an edge in the profession. However, the course is graduate professional only and not offered to undergraduates.

The class only met once as they were welcomed by OSU President William “Brit” Kirwan, Edward J. Ray, executive vice president and provost and John Cassady, dean of the College of Pharmacy. They also went through an orientation program to learn WebCT, the software technology the students will use to access the class online. WebCT is software that provides a secure web site and a forum for students to enter discussion, check grades and take quizzes. Using WebCT, PharmD will also post lectures, video case studies, and online video library and MD consult, a software database for medical professionals.

“The new degree offers an increased clinical experience that together with a shortage of pharmacists, has increased interest in our program,” said Sylvan Frank, associate dean of Pharmacy, in a recent release. In addition to the 40 credit hours of online course work, there is an eight-month experiential requirement. Students will devise their own personal plan for completing the experiential component. They may fit this into their work schedule (weekends, evenings) or they may be able to take time off work (vacation, leave of absence) and complete this requirement all at once. They (students) have an option of completing up to four months either in their own work setting and/or by showing competency in a particular area. In any case, they have two years to complete the experiential requirement,” Frank said.

The responsibilities of leading the instruction, determining what to post and preparing grades are placed on instructors Mary Beth Shirk and Dennis Mungall, director of the Nontraditional PharmD program. They lead the Drug Information and Literature Evaluation course and the Pharmaceutical Care Longitudinal course. Both courses are the first two of the three-year series that also includes Clinical Pharmacokinetics, a six-part Pathophysiology and Therapeutics series and is capped off with the eight months of experiential clerkships.

The initial class is a model of diversity, said Barbara Skunza, program manager of the Nontraditional PharmD program. A majority of the students are Ohio State alumni and represent all disciplines of pharmacy, including hospital, retail and home care, she said.

“Students can access our courseware from anywhere in the world. However, under current university tuition policy, out-of-state students must pay non-resident tuition,” Skunza said. “It’s like putting the medical library in your living room,” Mungall said. 13 students are from Columbus and surrounding areas and 18 are from cities and towns throughout the state.

Frank credits the university with providing considerable support for development of the online degree, with Technology Enhanced Learning and Research lending its technical expertise. Frank said the college hopes to form significant partnerships with the Medical Center, College of Nursing, Fisher College of Business and the Ohio Medical Education Network, the latter of which will give students access to their digital library case studies.

Important computer requirements to access the course are a 56K modem or better, Microsoft Windows 98, a Pentium II processor, Microsoft Office 2000 available with the Buckeye Bundle (software) and an Iomega ZIP drive for back up. Macintosh requires at least a PowerPC G3.