Has Online Education Reached A Plateau

Online college courses are more popular than ever, with enrollment reaching a record high in 2006, according to a report released by the Sloan Consortium. The report, entitled “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006″ gives the results of a recent study based on responses from more than 2,200 colleges and universities across the U.S. . You can read the full text of the report at www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/index.asp.

In recent years online enrollment grew at a much faster rate than the general college student body. But last year’s Sloan report showed a lower percentage rate of growth, prompting speculation that growth in online courses has started to level off.

Those concerns were proven groundless with the release of this year’s report, which shows no indication of a plateau in the growth of online enrollments. More than 3.2 million students took at least one online course in the 2005-2006 school year. This record enrollment is a whopping increase of over 800,000 more than the 2.3 million online students the year before.

The report brings some other interesting facts to light:

- Online students are generally older than the more traditional student, and are often working adults with family responsibilities.

- The majority of online students are undergraduates, although the proportion of online graduate students is a bit higher in comparison to the overall higher education population.

- More than 96 percent of the very largest institutions with 15,000 or more total enrollment offer online courses. This level of enrollment is more than twice the rate of the smallest institutions.

- About 2/3 of the very largest schools have fully online programs versus about 1/6 of the smallest institutions.

- 62 percent of chief academic officers believe that the quality of online instruction is equal to or superior to that of face-to-face learning.

- While a majority of chief academic officers believe online courses are high quality, only 4.6 % of chief academic officers thought there are no significant barriers to widespread adoption of online learning.

- 2/3 of academic leaders believe a lack of discipline on the part of online students is a critical barrier to online learning.

- Barriers to online learning include faculty issues, with the acceptance of online learning and the need for greater time and effort required for teaching online as important barriers. On the other hand neither a perceived lack of demand on the part of potential students nor the acceptance of an online degree by potential employers was seen as a critical barrier.

With a record online enrollment growth on a numeric and percentage basis, any fears that online enrollment levels are leveling off can be laid to rest. Each year, ever increasing numbers of students are finding that online courses are an integral part of their learning experience. And while the rate of increase is sure to eventually slow at some point, it appears that online education is here to stay.

 by Jesse Whitehead

Online Learning Enrollment

Online enrollment, including multiple courses taken by a single student, jumped from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million the following year, accounting for 7 percent of postsecondary education, according to Eduventures, a Boston firm that studies trends in education. Another study, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, reports that 65 percent of universities offering face-to-face graduate courses also offer graduate courses online. By early 2008, Eduventures predicts, about one in 10 college students will be enrolled in an online degree program.

“It’s only going to grow,” said Richard Garrett, an analyst with Eduventures. “The largest high school graduating class in U.S. history is expected to be 2009. There is going to be a lot of pressure on these students to get education in a competitive market.”

Excerpt fom the Washington Post

Online Degrees – What You Should Know

Online Degree:
With the advent of the Internet the mode of eductation has changed drastically. From distance education the word has changed to Online Education where the method of teaching has become virtual.

Online Degrees are available all over the Internet from valid accepted Universities to fake Diploma Mills that churn out diplomas without need for anything other than cold hard cash.

While the advantages of the Online Degree providing colleges are many the fact remains that the fake diploma mills are adversely affecting the reputation of the legitimate degree providing colleges.

Legitimate Online Degree College vs Fake Diploma Mills:
Universities and colleges online have to be accredited and the best ones like Phoenix University are, but there are again, the ‘life experience’ degree providers like the Belford University that create fake accreditation agencies and then accredit themselves, causing students looking for shortcuts to believe that these are legit institutes and are merely showing them the way out.

However, when all online degree holders enter the practical world looking for a job carrying their ‘online diplomas’ these fake diploma holders cause the legit degree holders to lose out as potential employers lose faith in the ‘online degrees’ so many of which are useless.

The result is what a study reports, “A Vault.com study reports that 77 percent of hiring managers say that an online degree received through an established university such as Duke or Stanford is more acceptable than a degree earned through an Internet only university like Capella or Jones International.” The assessment may be unfair but with so many fake diploma mills employers are unwilling to take a risk.

Some of the ways in which to identify legit Internet Degree Providers?
• Check accreditation of the online degree at US Department of Education
• Check legitimacy of the Internet University at Council for Higher Education Accreditation
• Write to the Diploma Mill Police that authenticates Internet Institutes of Education.

More on Online Degrees

Too often people leap into registering for an online degree without doing all their research, which often leads to wasted time, excessive costs, and disappointments. Will employers recognize my degree locally? Is there anyway to shorten the length of time it will take me to complete an online degree? Will my credits be transferable? Is it really an accredited school or is it a degree mill? Has anyone else taken this online degree before me?

Before you decide on the college where you want to earn your online degree, you may want to consider where you will eventually be working and where your earned degree will have a better name recognition. Publicly funded and state schools, local to the area of your future employment searches are worth investigating, as they can be less expensive in the long run. This will offer the name recognition that your future employers may be looking for.

If you have done your research and have earned a degree from a reputable, accredited online school your online degree will have the same standing as a degree earned from a typical campus-based one. In fact, for colleges that offer both online and campus-based learning, an online degree is exactly the same as one earned on campus. Nowhere on your degree will it be listed that you received your education online.

Tips for Distance Learners

Are you thinking about enrolling in a distance-learning program?  You need to know what is expected of you before you enroll, and what equipment you need before you get started.  Here are some tips for distance learners:

Tools
Before enrolling in a course, make sure you have access to the tools necessary to complete assignments. A word processor can help you to organize your work and communicate your thoughts more clearly. Access to a fax machine, computer with adequate hard disk space and modem for e-mail transmission are “musts” for many classes.

Schedule
Set aside a regularly scheduled time for study. Schedule your studies for a time when you are mentally fresh and able to devote at least one hour to your work. Think of the hour as “reserved time.” If you miss too many study periods, revise your schedule.

Where to Study
You will find it easier to focus in an appropriate environment for study. Find a place that is free from distractions.

Reading Skills
You must comprehend and retain what you read for real learning to take place. At the end of a study session, review everything you have read, making special notes of important points. Reading a computer screen can be hard on your eyes; it may be necessary to download hard copies of reading assignments and communications from your instructor and coworkers.

Communication Skills
Pay careful attention to instructions and be certain that you understand what is being asked. It often helps to develop a brief outline before responding to questions whether they are submitted in writing, via e-mail, orally, or on video/audio tape. Organization, grammar, and the appropriate style are important whichever medium you choose.

If you stay focused on your program and follow a regular study schedule, you should have success with your distance-learning course.

Preparing E-Learners for Online Success

Advances in e-learning technology have, however, created new demands on both learners and instructors.

For instructors and learners alike, the introduction of e-learning technologies in the last decade has renovated the all-too-familiar training experiences that endured in organizations for nearly a half-century. From desktop video and instant messaging to just-in-time training using PDAs and iPods, the technologies that are commonly found in organizations and homes are offering instructors and learners a host of new tools that have the potential to dramatically diversify and improve learning. As a result, learning is finally leaving the training classroom and becoming an indispensable ingredient of living and working in our society.
 
These advances in e-learning technology have, however, created new demands on both learners and instructors. The time-tested learning strategies and study skills that most of us developed through 12 or more years of a traditional classroom education can only assist us to a limited degree when courses are moved to e-learning formats. In response, instructors, instructional designers, and curriculum developers have been building an inventory of contemporary skills and techniques for generating useful learning experiences for today’s high-tech learners. At the same time, learners have been informally developing updated study skills and learning strategies in a relatively ad hoc manner.

E-learner readiness

From the challenges of forming study groups in an online environment to new techniques for taking notes while reading PDF files on a PDA, the study skills required for success in e-learning are often beyond those commonly applied in traditional classroom training by successful learners. Many younger learners are actually more capable with video game technologies than theyre are in utilizing online database search engines or learning from interactive chat room discussions. As a result, the e-learning courses that are being used currently in many organizations can present obstacles to learners who have only developed their study skills in low-tech instructor-led classrooms.

As an example, successful learners in high school and college courses have typically developed effective skills for asking questions of and communicating with the course instructor in a face-to-face course format. Yet, when they are offered online training opportunities there may not be an instructor available for feedback, and even if an instructor is available, they are often not accessible for immediate feedback at the time that the learner is struggling with course materials. Accordingly, the pragmatic study strategies used by successful e-learners veers from previous tactics used in the traditional classroom and includes such techniques as using Internet search engines to identify websites that may provide clarification or sending an instant message to a peer in the course while they await instructor feedback.

Without experience or other guidance, most learners—of all ages—are not adequately prepared to learn effectively from the technology-rich training opportunities offered by organizations. As a result, the training investment in high-tech delivery systems and courseware are not regularly achieving their potential impact on learner performance, say Shilwant and Haggarty in the August 2005 CLO article “Usability Testing for E-Learning.” Preparing learners for success in e-learning has become, therefore, a growing priority for training organizations.

E-learning study skills
 
Two essential skills for success in e-learning are adapting old skills and habits from the traditional classroom for use in e-learning and developing and applying new e-learning skills and habits for e-learning. From building a robust vocabulary of technology-related terms to adequately preparing for a debate in online discussion board and building the skills for e-learning typically takes many of the study habits from the traditional classroom and applies them in new ways using technology. For example, learners can apply the Cornell note-taking system even when they’re reading a PDF file they downloaded from the organization’s training library.

In addition to the adaptation of traditional study skills, some technologies have dramatically changed how a learner interacts with their instructors, peers, and course materials, thus requiring the development of some new study skills (see Figure 1). For instance, learners must invent new tactics for creating effective group dynamics when team projects are required in an online environment, such as leading the group through the well-known forming, norming, storming, and performing stages.

By Ryan Watkins

Tips for Distance Learners

Are you thinking about enrolling in a distance-learning program?  You need to know what is expected of you before you enroll, and what equipment you need before you get started.  Here are some tips for distance learners:

Tools
Before enrolling in a course, make sure you have access to the tools necessary to complete assignments. A word processor can help you to organize your work and communicate your thoughts more clearly. Access to a fax machine, computer with adequate hard disk space and modem for e-mail transmission are “musts” for many classes.

Schedule
Set aside a regularly scheduled time for study. Schedule your studies for a time when you are mentally fresh and able to devote at least one hour to your work. Think of the hour as “reserved time.” If you miss too many study periods, revise your schedule.

Where to Study
You will find it easier to focus in an appropriate environment for study. Find a place that is free from distractions.

Reading Skills
You must comprehend and retain what you read for real learning to take place. At the end of a study session, review everything you have read, making special notes of important points. Reading a computer screen can be hard on your eyes; it may be necessary to download hard copies of reading assignments and communications from your instructor and coworkers.

Communication Skills
Pay careful attention to instructions and be certain that you understand what is being asked. It often helps to develop a brief outline before responding to questions whether they are submitted in writing, via e-mail, orally, or on video/audio tape. Organization, grammar, and the appropriate style are important whichever medium you choose.

If you stay focused on your program and follow a regular study schedule, you should have success with your distance-learning course.

Tips for Distance Learners

Are you thinking about enrolling in a distance-learning program?  You need to know what is expected of you before you enroll, and what equipment you need before you get started.  Here are some tips for distance learners:

Tools
Before enrolling in a course, make sure you have access to the tools necessary to complete assignments. A word processor can help you to organize your work and communicate your thoughts more clearly. Access to a fax machine, computer with adequate hard disk space and modem for e-mail transmission are “musts” for many classes.

Schedule
Set aside a regularly scheduled time for study. Schedule your studies for a time when you are mentally fresh and able to devote at least one hour to your work. Think of the hour as “reserved time.” If you miss too many study periods, revise your schedule.

Where to Study
You will find it easier to focus in an appropriate environment for study. Find a place that is free from distractions.

Reading Skills
You must comprehend and retain what you read for real learning to take place. At the end of a study session, review everything you have read, making special notes of important points. Reading a computer screen can be hard on your eyes; it may be necessary to download hard copies of reading assignments and communications from your instructor and coworkers.

Communication Skills
Pay careful attention to instructions and be certain that you understand what is being asked. It often helps to develop a brief outline before responding to questions whether they are submitted in writing, via e-mail, orally, or on video/audio tape. Organization, grammar, and the appropriate style are important whichever medium you choose.

If you stay focused on your program and follow a regular study schedule, you should have success with your distance-learning course.

Rumors of online education’s plateau greatly exaggerated

Contrary to recent projections that online course enrollment at colleges has leveled off, a new report states online enrollment that there was a large increase in online enrollment, reports The Washington Post.

The Sloan Consortium, a group of colleges pursuing online programs, published a report that estimates 850,000 more students took online courses in the fall of 2005 than the year before, an increase of nearly 40 percent. This statistic flies in the face of evidence that online learning growth has reached its peak.

For the entire post, please click here.

Growing Popularity of E-Learning

More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education.

Roughly 3.2 million students took at least one online course from a degree-granting institution during the fall 2005 term, the Sloan Consortium said. That’s double the number who reported doing so in 2002, the first year the group collected data, and more than 800,000 above the 2004 total. While the number of online course participants has increased each year, the rate of growth slowed from 2003 to 2004.

The report, a joint partnership between the group and the College Board, defines online courses as those in which 80 percent of the content is delivered via the Internet.

The Sloan Survey of Online Learning, “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006,” shows that 62 percent of chief academic officers say that the learning outcomes in online education are now “as good as or superior to face-to-face instruction,” and nearly 6 in 10 agree that e-learning is “critical to the long-term strategy of their institution.” Both numbers are up from a year ago.

Researchers at the Sloan Consortium, which is administered through Babson College and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, received responses from officials at more than 2,200 colleges and universities across the country. (The report makes few references to for-profit colleges, a force in the online market, in part because of a lack of survey responses from those institutions.)

Much of the report is hardly surprising. The bulk of online students are adult or “nontraditional” learners, and more than 70 percent of those surveyed said online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.

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