The online "Education Life" section of this week's NY Times "http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2004/06/06/education/edlife/index.html" (free registration required) has several articles on distance education. A Different Course (extract) Today, 1 in 12 college students attends a for-profit institution, and the business has grown to $23 billion in annual revenue for 2002, the latest year analyzed by Eduventures, an education market research company in Boston. The University of Phoenix alone has about 201,000 full-time adult students at 142 campuses and learning centers. Enrollment in for-profit institutions is growing at three times the rate of nonprofit colleges and universities, says Sean Gallagher, an analyst with Eduventures. The Digital Doctorate (extracts) Her story is typical of a growing number of middle-age people who are trying to advance idling careers or shift into new fields. About 5,000 to 8,000 people are currently pursuing Ph.D.'s through online programs at a dozen or so institutions, generally in health and human services, business, education and psychology. Fields like laboratory sciences are not far behind. A recent survey of top administrators at 994 higher-education institutions suggests online education's new respectability. The survey, conducted by Babson College for the Boston-based Sloan Consortium, found that 57 percent consider online studies to be equal to or better than face-to-face instruction. That, of course, leaves plenty of academics sitting skeptically on the other side of the fence. One is Richard Abrams, associate dean of the international studies program at the University of California at Berkeley, where he participates in faculty hiring decisions. Regarding applicants who gained their doctoral degrees online, Mr. Abrams says: ''Those kinds of candidates get thrown out right away. ''If you meet the requirements for a degree, what difference does it make how you got the experience?'' asks Thomas L. Russell, director emeritus of instructional telecommunications at North Carolina State University. Mr. Russell is the author of ''The No Significant Difference Phenomenon,'' a continuing book that compiles studies on distance learning since the 1920's (there were 355 by last count, in 2001). Their bottom line? On average, distance-learning courses are neither better nor worse than a traditional class. Yet few are cracking through the ivied halls with online Ph.D's. Competition is far too stiff, considering the glut of job-hungry Ph.D.'s from the nation's top colleges. As a result, most online doctoral students who have landed good jobs have used these degrees to move up at institutions where they are already known -- generally community colleges and second-tier universities. In those environments, their skills and goals are the issue, not their alma maters. ''If you're already working for someone and you want to get one of these degrees, that's O.K.,'' says Mr. Crow of the North Central Association. ''But if you're trying to move from the world of work into academia, I tell people, 'You ought to look twice.''' Forget Socrates (extracts) Concord, which is owned by Kaplan Inc. -- the test- coaching company and a unit of the Washington Post Company -- does not use the Socratic method of calling on students at random to recite the facts and reasoning of cases under discussion. Many students find the method terrifying. ''Quite frankly,'' said Jack R. Goetz, Concord's dean, ''the Socratic method as typically employed in American law school is probably not the best way to educate people. We have a more nurturing atmosphere.'' The profession and other law schools appear threatened by the whole concept, and the American Bar Association has declined to consider an online law school for accreditation, which would be necessary for its students to take the bar in any state except California. But California, which has long allowed correspondence school graduates to take its exam, has reciprocity agreements that would let its lawyers practice in some other states. John A. Sebert, a bar association official, says it has no plans to accredit a completely virtual law school, though it has recently allowed traditional law schools to offer limited online courses. ''We're training professionals who deal with people as problem solvers who need skills of negotiation, counseling and advocacy,'' he said. ''Most of us find it difficult to believe that that kind of training can be done solely in an online atmosphere.'' Ms. Riegel welcomes that. ''They don't think we need to be yelled at, screamed at or scared,'' she said. Professor Berman-Barrett's class suggests that Concord is a plausible way to learn the law. The curriculum is like that of any other law school, with courses in contracts, criminal law, torts and legal writing in the first year and various basics and electives in the upper classes. Taped lectures feature prominent professors, most notably Arthur R. Miller of Harvard Law School. Professor Miller is the nation's leading expert on civil procedure and former host of a public television program. Taped lectures, though, do not allow students to interact with the professors. Whether Concord will make students think and act like lawyers is the ultimate question.
