Continually innovating for more than 40 years, online engineering education at Viterbi is recognized with superlative rankings by U.S. News and World Report

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The USC Viterbi School of Engineering earned top honors in two online education categories in the U.S. News and World Report 2013 rankings, it was announced today.

Viterbi garnered the No. 1 slot in both the Online Graduate Engineering Programs and Online Computer Information Technology Programs (Computer Science) rankings, recognizing excellence in peer reputation, student engagement, faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, and admissions selectivity.

The Viterbi Distance Education Network (DEN@Viterbi), one of the first of its kind, was created in 1972 to address the continuing education needs of Southern California's aerospace industry. After four decades of growth and investment, Viterbi currently offers more than 40 online engineering master's degree programs, graduate certificates and professional courses from custom studio classrooms on the USC campus.

"I firmly believe that this distinction would have been impossible without the welcoming acceptance of DEN teaching by our faculty (tenured, tenure-track, research and faculty of the practice)," said Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of USC Viterbi. "When others in academia dismissed the importance of technology in delivering education, all Viterbi faculty have been forthcoming and eager partners in this venture."

DEN@Viterbi students range from active military personnel who are deployed overseas, to employees of corporate partners like Qualcomm, Boeing, Korean Air and Kuwait Oil Company, who are able to further their education without leaving their jobs and families in their home countries.

Viterbi's online education integrates a unique blended classroom model allowing distance students to engage and learn from the school's world-class research faculty, not differentiating between on-campus and off-campus graduate and professional students.

Enforcing the same admission standards and graduation criteria for all graduate engineering students, regardless of whether they are on campus or at distance, has enabled the Viterbi School to deliver the same high quality education for both classes of students.

Online education at Viterbi has continued to evolve in an ever more competing online environment while always maintaining the highest standards in delivery, support and education. The latest innovation for the school is the iPodia Alliance, an online education collaboration between USC and schools in Germany, China, Taiwan, Israel, South Korea, and India that allows students around the world to learn together in real time in a fully interactive "classroom without borders."

"In the on-going debate regarding distance learning, DEN@Viterbi provides a new type of classroom, in which quality remains strong as the scale increases, and technology is used to enhance access to our top faculty and their instructional content. The parallel creation of the iPodia classroom and its alliance provides yet another world-leading example, this time of a global classroom, which would have been impossible without the in-house developed DEN know-how," Yortsos said.

Yortsos praised the leadership of Kelly Goulis, senior associate dean for Graduate and Professional Programs, and Binh Tran, executive director of DEN for their important leadership role over the last several years in shaping DEN@Viterbi to be the powerhouse that it is today.

More information about DEN@Viterbi can be found online at viterbi.usc.edu/den.

SOURCE USC Viterbi School of Engineering