UC Irvine Extension Licenses Online Project Management Courses to the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) of Brazil

UC Irvine Extension Explores New Opportunities for Reaching Global Constituencies Utilizing a Pioneering Approach to Online Education

IRVINE, Calif. – July 25, 2006 – Gary Matkin, dean of Continuing Education at University of California, Irvine, is pleased to announce a joint educational venture between UC Irvine Extension and the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). FGV is a non-profit school of higher education and the largest provider of online education in Brazil with more than 8,000 degree-seeking online students.

“UC Irvine Extension is proud to offer the first ever online project management program provided in a foreign country by a university,” said Matkin. “This undertaking represents a true integration of course content into an International MBA program.”

UC Irvine Extension, long recognized as a leader in online education, will provide its internationally-acclaimed project management courses to FGV's International Executive MBA in Project Management. Classes will be taught by Portuguese-speaking instructors with cultural-specific content designed to accommodate the educational needs of Brazilian students. Upon completion of their coursework, the FGV students will receive a UC Irvine Extension certificate of completion and will be eligible to sit for the internationally recognized Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.

The courses offered to FGV students will include:

Introduction to Project Management
Project Monitoring and Control
Management, Leadership, and Team Building
PMP Preparation Exam

UC Irvine Extension has offered an intensive summer Orientation to American Business Practices program to visiting FGV MBA students for seven years. Based on the outstanding success of that program, and the global demand for American curriculum, Dean Matkin saw a need to expand UC Irvine Extension’s project management courses to reach a larger international audience.

The partnership between UC Irvine Extension and FGV has had to overcome several technical, cultural and contractual issues in order to realize this international educational alliance. “Some people think that all you have to do is take an existing online course and just translate it into Portuguese or Spanish, but that is not the case,” said Matkin. “UC Irvine Extension worked closely with FGV to localize the content, adding concepts and cases that reflect Brazilian culture while retaining the basic academic principles that make the program so powerful.”

In addition to addressing the technical issues of translation and adaptation, UC Irvine Extension has had to reflect in its course design the cultural differences in information presentation. Larry Cooperman, director of technology and design at the UC Irvine Distance Learning Center, has been instrumental in implementing the Brazilian program.

“UC Irvine Extension provides not just general project management knowledge but applied project management principles to business situations,” says Cooperman. “I think a UC Irvine Extension certificate of completion will be a differentiating factor on a résumé in Brazil.”

The UC Irvine Distance Learning Center intends to replicate its success with the Brazilian program to other countries in Latin America and around the world. “This program is meeting a great need in Brazil,” said Matkin. “UC Irvine Extension looks forward to forging relationships with respected educational institutions across the globe in order to serve other countries in a similar manner.”

About the Distance Learning Center

The UC Irvine Distance Learning Center is dedicated to providing transforming learning experiences for local and global constituencies and offers exciting and innovative courses and certificate programs for a culturally diverse student body. Distance Learning Center provides the UC Irvine campus and strategically selected other organizations with distance learning services, including the development and delivery of courses using online technology.

About UC Irvine Extension

As the continuing education arm of UCI, UC Irvine Extension is dedicated to providing a university-level learning experience for students, offering thousands of exciting courses and programs to local, regional, and global constituencies. UC Irvine Extension offers a rich array of academic and community programs to support a diverse audience, from a wide selection of academic programs to numerous campus activities. For more information, please visit extension.uci.edu.

About the University of California, Irvine

The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.3 billion. For more UCI news, visit today.uci.edu.