Open Learning Institute of British Columbia

The Open Learning Institute of British Columbia (OLI) was a single mode, distance education post-secondary provincial institute in Canada, created in 1978 by the Government of British Columbia. Its mandate was to improve access to higher education across the province by means of distance education and other open learning methods. Inspired in part by the UK Open University model, it used a combination of print-based courses, audiovisual media and telephone tutoring to offer courses up to the baccalaureate degree level. In 1988, it was subsumed in part as the BC Open University under the new Open Learning Agency (OLA).^[1] In 2005 it was amalgamated as the Open Learning Division with the newly designated Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops (TRU), BC. TRU was formerly known as the University College of the Cariboo.^[2]