It's early September and for many people that means getting ready to start or return to university for another term.

The malls and plazas are extra busy as students load up on supplies, new clothes and other items. For some students though, the ritual of gearing up for a new semester is quite different than in the past.

More and more post secondary students are discovering and enrolling in online classes.

These typically provide the option of tending to course work at a time that works best for the individual. For many, without the flexibility of online learning, pursuing an education would be near impossible.

Sadly, higher education has not necessarily been available to some very capable people given their financial and family situations. Those who have their roots in rural areas have always been forced to move to pursue an education, something that is not always feasible. The flexibility of online learning is slowly eroding these obstacles.

Online courses typically follow the regular 13-week semester but so long as one has access to the world wide web, students can complete the course requirements from anywhere and usually at any time of the day or night that suits them.

Far from being an easy alternative, online courses are typically just as rigorous, or even more so, than regular classroom-based offerings.

I've been building and teaching online courses in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley for several semesters, and I am convinced this is the most significant innovation in education in the past 50 years.

The reality is that young people have grown up communicating and acquiring information very differently than previous generations.

For them, the online learning environment is comfortable, familiar territory.

Some of my students would never speak up in a regular classroom yet are completely at ease making thoughtful and informed contributions to online discussions.

In the global community, online learning makes a powerful statement.

I have had students taking courses who live in China, Japan, Australia, England, Switzerland, the U.S., Alberta and from all over B.C. One student completed a course while backpacking in Central America.

Another proudly boasted at length that he submitted his assignment from the renowned Senor Frog's Restaurant and Bar in Cancun. He even uploaded a photo in case anyone in the class doubted his story.

We shop, socialize, bank and do just about everything else online. Delivering legitimate and fully accredited university courses online was inevitable.

Oh sure, there are some relics adamant that a quality education can only be delivered in a huge lecture hall by a spectacled professor wearing a vintage tweed blazer with elbow pads, scribbling on a chalk board.

Mind you, there are also countless sociology faculties who still worship Lenin, Mao and Castro. So we shouldn't be overly concerned about the dinosaurs walking among us.

Fortunately, most institutions of higher learning are embracing online learning rather than resisting it.

And there's something about being in Cancun in the middle of the winter semester that just sounds a bit too irresistible.

- John Martin is a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley and can be contacted at John.Martin@ufv.ca.