Invitation to an open debate about DL

I was asked to write an opinion piece about what is needed to move DL forward. Here is a link to it:

Modern Learner: Opinion: What it will take to move distance education forward: News on Online Degrees, Online MBA's, Mini MBA Programs, Online Ivy League Schools, MBA Alternatives, eLearning

I would like to get a debate going. Is my opinion way off base? Is this the most enlightening article you have ever read? Something in-between? If you disagree let's start the conversation! I am going to actively monitor this thread until we seem to have talked through it.

This is a debate about the DL format, so the only ground rule I will require for me to respond is that we do not discuss individual schools (including mine), different accreditations (including mine), or belittle each other or your bone head ideas (just kidding, see how that feels!).

 

"Opinion: What it will take to move distance education forward"

Your viewpoint is certainly skewed towards the business aspect of distant learning (DL) versus the educator's or student's paradigm. I do believe many institutions of learning are using DL to target/market customers (students) that would be unable to attend school in the traditional way. Time and convenience is a valuable commodity to many students that offsets the inconvenience of paying higher tuition associated with the "large industry players." As long as convenience is important to the consumer, distance education will naturally "move forward".

 

I want to mention that I believe the DL consumer will sacrifice to some point, quality for convenience. I am sure DL institutions are constantly balancing this relationship. Should we attain DETC versus RA accreditation? Should our programs be accredited as well? Should we use Blackboard or Angel or our own platform? All this factors into the cost of tuition and the perceived value of the education, professional certifications, degrees and so forth, which in turn impedes or promotes DL from moving forward.

 

It is very likely that quality of on-line education will improve at the same time cost will decrease. This will be due mainly to increase competition from B&M. If we view distance education as an investment, then the rational investors (students) will invest for the highest return at the lowest risk; therefore it will be reasonable to expect students will be investing in the best education at the lowest risk.

 

I love your statement that anything above $300 a credit is profit maximizing. That's one of the truly ugly sides of the for-profit schools and it is damaging the reputation of even the great profit schools.


Another issue that holding back online schools, not mentioned in your article, is the wide availability of diplomas from fake universities. Many in the general population are not aware of the vast differences between online schools and tend to lump them all together. Thus, when some people hear of a cheap and easy degree available online, they tend to view all online degrees as invalid.

 

Why do you insist on using the term "Online Degree"??? There is no such thing!!!

 

My point is that distance education will not move forward the way it should until we come to a consensus of what it is and what it is not.

Actually, I would like a barf bag.

http://www.sicksack.com/

 

Another issue that holding back online schools, not mentioned in your article, is the wide availability of diplomas from fake universities. Many in the general population are not aware of the vast differences between online schools and tend to lump them all together. Thus, when some people hear of a cheap and easy degree available online, they tend to view all online degrees as invalid.[/QUOTE]

On a continuum with diploma mills at one end and NFP B&Ms on the other end; virtual for profits schools are more closer to diploma mills with some overlap will diploma mills on one side and with lower quality B&Ms of the other side. Therefore, the perception that virtual schools are diploma mills. Also there is a school of thought which I subscribed to that virtual for profit is closer to lower quality B&M.
The price of the tuition is what the market can bear.

 

I propose that for the purpose of this debate, if US schools are listed in the Council for Higher Education Accreditation directory, than they are not diploma mills. Of course we are not to discuss specific schools anyhow.
Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) (2010)

 

Please see this paste from Dictionary.com: "Online Degree: a college degree earned mainly or completely by taking online courses" That is the exact meaning I intend and I will continue to use the term.

 

Yes, I am probably skewed to looking at is from the business side. Don’t forget though, I was a student first for many years in DL courses, and still am. I am currently attending CSU’s HUX Humanities program..

I would challenge your language that students are customers, though I am not sure this is a DL only phenomenon so we probably can debate that elsewhere.

It seems like you are saying with all your “quotes” that the market will move forward on its own based upon student need for flexibility. Could be, but my point in the article was that the faculty side of things needs to be looked at also, and that market economics might not be the only way to improve the velocity of the “move forward”.

DEL

 

I like your questions. To number one I think it if the faculty model that I reference in the article. In early 2009 I was interviewed for an Associate Professor position at the University of the District of Columbia. Long story short, the faculty that interviewed me was not sold on the DL format for many of the reasons I mention in the article.

For number two, often it is more about pace, the more successful institutions are the ones that get there first….

 

Don’t want to go here, I would argue the quality is the same or better, but that is a different debate………

(BTW tough to respond to everything because the board makes me wait 75 seconds between every post…..)

 

Best education at the lowest risk………this sounds interesting but I do not really understand your point…

(waiting 25 more seconds......5,4,3,2,1)

 

Look around, that price point is not unique to for-profits….

Fake universities….I knew how bad it was before I moved into the industry, but never really understood how confusing it was from the outside looking in to figure it out….this is a huge problem and I agree that the DL format seems to make it easier to ‘fake’, this is a valid point and something needed to move things forward

 

On a continuum with diploma mills at one end and NFP B&Ms on the other end; virtual for profits schools are more closer to diploma mills with some overlap will diploma mills on one side and with lower quality B&Ms of the other side. Therefore, the perception that virtual schools are diploma mills. Also there is a school of thought which I subscribed to that virtual for profit is closer to lower quality B&M.
The price of the tuition is what the market can bear.[/QUOTE]

I think this is a straw man argument, that somehow because there are bad actors all schools are tainted. How many stories have you heard (or told) about partying your freshman year on campus, never going to class, and then cramming for 10 hours and getting a B+ on the final and in the class. Not the place for this debate but quality doesn’t have much to do with the argument (in my opinion)… Red Hearing…