At the Queen's University School of Business in Kingston, a professor prepares to teach a class. Instead of standing before a roomful of students, he is alone in a television studio.

Peter Allen controls videoconferencing technology as Michael Darling of Queen's University lectures. Mr. Darling's image is superimposed on a campus street scene. Photo: Harrison Smith for The Globe and Mail

Peter Allen controls videoconferencing technology as Michael Darling of Queen's University lectures. Mr. Darling's image is superimposed on a campus street scene. Photo: Harrison Smith for The Globe and Mail

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In the adjoining control room, a producer monitors a bank of controls, superimposing the instructor's image on a live view of University Avenue in the centre of campus and switching to a guest speaker on video. Students in nine cities from Vancouver to Montreal look on at other studios — most owned and operated by Queen's.

The university offers three MBA programs nationally by video conferencing — Friday through Monday, except for a couple of weeks that students spend on campus in Kingston.

For students like them, distance-learning technology means being able to enroll in an MBA program of their choice while still working, without disrupting their family lives. And by extending their reach to cities across Canada, universities such as Queen's can reach a broader audience.

In the university's class of 2010, there are 85 students in the one-year Accelerated MBA for Business Graduates, 81 in the 16-month National Executive MBA and 99 in the 16-month Cornell-Queen's Executive MBA, offered jointly with Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

All three programs are designed for mature students who have worked for at least a few years and want to keep doing so while they pursue their degrees. Video-conferencing makes that possible, says Michael Darling, program director for the Accelerated MBA for Business Graduates.

"It's all about them being able to stay in their city, keep their job and be able to fit this into their lives," Mr. Darling says. "We have quite a lot of people quite frankly who only apply to this program and say 'This is the only one that fits my needs.' "

Dev Sharma, a student in the Accelerated MBA who runs his own commodities trading business in Vancouver, says "having not to move my life to Kingston for a year" is the big difference with this program. He could have taken an MBA locally, he says, but "you only get to do an MBA once in your life, so you might as well do it from one of the best schools."

At Goodes Hall on its main campus, Queen's has two fully equipped video-conference studios. From Friday through Monday the facilities are busy, as the distance-education MBA programs run through the weekend to minimize students' time away from work.

At each remote studio, students gather around a table and watch two displays. One shows the professor's slides or the display from a document reader — an overhead camera that can pick up a preprinted document or handwritten notes on a pad. The other shows the professor when he or she is speaking. When a student at any location asks a question or makes a comment, the camera switches to that location.

Every student has a handheld control that can be used to ask a question or respond to electronic polls during a class. Students are encouraged to zoom in their local cameras on themselves while speaking to the class, says Al Sedgewick, director of video-conferencing services, but if they forget the producer in the control room at Queen's can do it for them. Control of remote facilities — like the ability to restart a misbehaving device — is a key to success, which is one reason why Queen's prefers owning its own facilities although some in the field are rented, Mr. Sedgewick says.

Athabasca University, which pioneered distance education in Canada and bills itself as Canada's open university, takes a less high-tech but more portable approach in its 840-student executive MBA program, which is Canada's largest, according to Marilyn Wangler, director of marketing and communications.

Athabasca uses IBM's Lotus Notes, collaboration software that has been used in business since the 1980s. Students complete the program while holding down full-time jobs, and may travel extensively. Ms. Wangler says. Notes lets them work on their own schedules at home and on the road.

Students work in teams of six to 10 people. Instructors lead discussions and help students through Notes. Athabasca recently added a feature called persistent chat, allowing students to collaborate via text chat and keep a complete online record of their discussions for later reference.

The anywhere, any time access lets Athabasca run a structured program, where students must complete work to deadlines, while still accommodating their hectic schedules, Ms. Wangler says.

Brad Fletcher, operations manager for the Canadian operations of Louisville, Ky., beverage company Brown-Foreman Corp., had been thinking about an MBA for a decade, but "the commitment was one that would be very difficult for me to meet, because I travel a lot."

Mr. Fletcher says the Athabasca program lets him keep up wherever he is.

Special to The Globe and Mail