The development history, important features and future trends of American online master's degree programs

ABSTRACT

In recent years, due to the impact of the coronavirus "COVID-19"pandemic crisis, obtaining a degree through online learning is attracting more and more people's attention. The research object of this article is the online master's degree program, which is a master-level education based on distance education. The enrollment targets are adults who have obtained a bachelor's degree or above, or are working adults, and the training form is mainly in the form of distance education. The development of the American online master's degree program started early and has gone through three stages of beginning, development and transformation. The development of online master's degree programs has important characteristics the program provides from closed to open, the main provider from single to multiple, online education and traditional higher education from separation to integration.In the future, American master's degree programs will continue to be unbundled. © 2022 ACM.