The education of professionals does not end with the achievement of a degree. Professional competence requires a commitment to lifelong learning and a continuing effort to update knowledge and skills in order to improve the state of the art of practice as society's needs and technology change. Consequently, the school provides the means for acquiring specialized competencies, skills in new areas, and updating of professional knowledge and techniques.

Opportunities for continuing professional education and development are available to practitioners in fields related to School of Communication, Information and Library Studies (SCILS) program offerings. These opportunities include attendance at a range of credit, noncredit, and certificate programs offered by Professional Development Studies, enrollment in some graduate degree courses on a nondegree basis, and contracting for customized in-house training to meet an organization's human resource development needs.

About Online Learning

Many of the classes offered by Professional Development Studies are offered online.  These online classes are taught by faculty; you are in class with a group of peers. The classes are not self-paced tutorials. We limit class size to help ensure that there is a great deal of interaction among students and teachers in every class. The classes have a structure with readings, deadlines, and assignments similar to face-to-face coursework. But because the classes are asynchronous, during a given week you can participate during the times that are convenient for you. With asynchronous threaded discussion, class conversations unfold over periods of time; therefore, you must check into class at least three times per week for a fall or spring class, and five times per week for a summer class (since summer is a compressed semester). On occasion we may run a synchronous session via chat or webcasting, offered generally as an optional session. If there is to be a required synchronous session in a class, it will appear in the course description so you know about it in advance.

Successful online students tend to be self-motivated, fairly organized, and comfortable learning by reading and writing. They are people who stay on top of their work rather than needing reminders about deadlines--busy people who understand that learning takes time and do not expect online classes to take fewer hours than face-to-face classes. To be successful, students must have experience with: word processing; email; sending, receiving, and saving attachments in a variety of file formats, such as Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs; file management on your computer; navigating websites; and basic internet searching. You should feel relatively comfortable when you have to try something new with your computer. Students must have regular access to the internet in order to get into class at least several times a week, and have an individual email account. Students have access to a 24/7 help desk, available by phone toll-free or via email, to help solve technical problems they might encounter.

You can verify that you have a desktop computer appropriate for accessing our online courses by going to http://rutgersonline.net and checking the technical requirements, which are listed through a link on the left of the webpage.