Except for Levicoff, of course:biglaugh::yes(1): The Perception of Online Education Has Started to Change | Economics Wire
The Lines Between Online and Traditional Education are Blurring Many colleges and universities have both traditional and online degree programs, and combinations of mixtures between the two. Their accreditation covers both their traditional and online programs. For people who think that online education is no good, the implications are that accreditation bodies that accredit online programs are also no good.
By and large, perceptions regarding DL are just that...only perceptions. Every year, Inside Higher Ed will report that their annual faculty survey shows that "faculty are still skeptical about the quality of online education." However, the skepticism has no data to back it up. There is no consistent body of empirical research to show that students learn worse online and a lot of studies that show that student can learn at least as well online. The most challenging findings are that online courses tend to have higher attrition on average than on-ground courses; however, that has little on nothing to do with the superiority or inferiority of online learning and is more of the function (or lack) of student services for online learners.
Agreed, all those surveys show is that older academics don't keep up with what's happening in their own industry. It's actually sort of depressing how backwards a lot of older faculty members are.
Fine, I'm in the dissertation phase, and probably will be for a while yet. Matt's pretty close to finishing though!
