In the Education Life section, Cornell's Glenn C. Altschuler writes an article on "e-learning." This seems to be a relatively innocuous article designed to give an overview for people unfamiliar with this area, but there may be some tidbits that catch the interest of readers of this site. The article does talk about the closing of some for-profit operations due to the high cost of developing online courses. I guess these operations had silly ideas of actually providing valid educational programs. It would be so much easier to just go through the motions like the more-numerous degree mills in this field. The article quotes a writer, Sara Dulaney Gilbert, who in her book "How To Be a Successful Online Student" writes, "If the name of the organization is followed by .edu or .org, it is rarely a purely commercial venture or potential rip-off." !!!! Mr. Altschuler repeats this notion without offering any dispute. How peculiar! We've long established that ".edu" and ".org" pretty much guarantee nothing, right?
The ".edu" or ".org" domains mean nothing. I believe that only institutions who offer a 4-year program of study and above are supposed to get ".edu" domains, as I know community and other 2-year colleges are prohibited from using them. I find this particuarly galling when regionally accredited 2-year colleges can't use a ".edu" domain, but a brazen diploma mill who will confer a doctorate for payment can use a ".edu" address. It's crazy. Bruce
