Todays Times newspaper (Monday, Feb 21) carried our plans to host the worlds first Virtual Degree Ceremony on the front page!

The ceremony will actually be the first in the series planned for 2000, and therefore the first in the new millennium. It will be held in the Berrill lecture theatre in Milton Keynes on March 31st, but webcast to the world with a KMi Stadium skin, and using the new tools developed by our WebSymposia venture. The story, given to The Times by IETs Robin Mason, was planned as a piece for the Monday Interfaces section of the paper – but was today promoted to the front page.

The story notes that this ceremony is aimed at the worldwide body of students who will be graduating from the Masters Programme in Open and Distance Education. Given that this is a small body of students (the graduating cohort is only 25) and that as they are from as far afield as Taiwan, the US, Iceland and Hong Kong, this was felt to be a most appropriate vehicle for their graduation. This was also felt to be a suitable venue for the presentation of an honorary degree to Tim Berners-Lee.

Amongst our initial plans to support this ceremony are the ideas of using a student-generated yearbook, and phone-in audio notes to add a personalized flavour to the proceedings.

Although there may not be much there yet, you should checkout the Virtual Degree Ceremony pages to see how our plans for the event are progressing.