Master's degree in nuclear engineering by videotaped courses

In 1986, a group of northern midwest utilities met with faculty from the nuclear engineering department at the University of Wisconsin (UW) to discuss the possibility of offering graduate courses by videotape for academic credit and earning a master's degree. Four years later, two utility employees from Northern States Power (NSP) and Wisconsin Electric Power Companies (WEPCO) graduated from the University of Wisconsin with master's degrees earned entirely by taking videotape graduate courses at their individual nuclear power plant sites. Within these 4 years, more than a dozen videotaped graduate courses were developed by the faculty of the department in a formalized master's degree program in nuclear engineering and engineering physics. This paper outlines the program's development and its current features.