The 5 Requirements to Earn a Master's Degree with Global UniversityONE

Of the many folks who have expressed interest in the full fellowship to the Alpha Cohort with Global UniversityONE , several have astutely asked about what is required to complete thei Master degree, so this is some more info about what will be learned through the master program, and hence will ultimately be demonstrated by students before they graduate.

Demonstrate Expertise

The Pareto principle shows that approximately 20% of the skills and knowledge in a field is used approximately 80% of the time. Thus, since it is impossible to know all the knowledge in a particular field, it is appropriate to ensure a student has expertise in the knowledge and skills generally used 80% of the time.

Demonstrate the Scholarship of Discovery

In Boyer's highly influential essay "Scholarship Reconsidering", he laid out 4 forms of scholarship for the profesoriate. And while a master's degree is not necessarily for one who plans to become a professor, Boyer's framework is a solid foundation for all postgraduate degrees, with less requirements to earn a master's degree than a doctorate.

The Scholarship of Discovery is the classic requirement for a postgraduate degree, with a thesis written by the student, that makes a contribution to the field of study. This may either be putting together sufficient secondary research as to distill something new of value, or to conduct the replication of past original research, as to gain those skills and contribute to the field by verifying or refuting the past results.

In the current cohort, meeting this requirement through replication is not an option, because it does not fit with the research topics available.

Demonstrate the Scholarship of Application

In many newer applied master programs, there is a master's project instead of a thesis. Global UniversityONE does not believe only having one or the other is sufficient to grant a master's degree. Thus every student will also have a master's project along with their Scholarship of Discovery. Usually this project is an outgrowth of the research conducted and written up previously, so it is not as major of work as it would be to do something completely new.

Demonstrate the Scholarship of Integration

While specialization is valuable, all real-world problems touch on many disciplines, and thus it is critical to be able to work in interdisciplinary teams, and have sufficient interdisciplinary knowledge to have your knowledge integrate into existing systems.

To demonstrate this, students will work on a project or research with those in a different discipline. In the case of the Alpha Cohort, this will be working with fellow cohort students on aspects of their research and related project.

Demonstrate the Scholarship of Teaching

The etymology of the "master" degree comes from the Latin "magister" which meant a teacher. Thus, the Scholarship of Teaching is built-in to Global UniversityONE's master's programs. This is demonstrated by successfully teaching a course in an area of expertise of the master student, such that the students have been able to sufficiently learn the material.

Meet the Degree Qualification Profile for a Master's Degree

The United States doesn't have a single specification for a Master's Degree curriculum; but the Lumina Foundation has produced a de facto standard called the Degree Qualification Profile (DQP) which defines various tertiary and quinary degrees requirements. Global UniversityONE integrates these requirements into the above criteria, so they will all be met by the time the student graduates.