Blog Information

• Posted By : Elizabeth Holden
• Posted On : Jun 30, 2023
• Views : 179
• Category : NBA
• Description :

Overview

• Online higher education takes many forms. It can be professors lecturing over Zoom, sophisticated multimedia courses created by professional instructional designers, essay writer helper free websites or, in the most ambitious cases, powerful new platforms that harness cloud computing and massive datasets to deliver learning experiences powered by machine learning. Most colleges offer a mix of traditional on-campus classes and fully online degrees. But some schools have made online learning their entire focus, including a growing number of “non-traditional” schools that enroll more students in online degrees than they do in traditional ones.

  Providing all of their degree programs online, non-traditional schools often contract out the management of those services to private companies whose primary goal is profit. These firms, which are referred to as Online Program Management providers (OPMs), take on the risk of investing in the digital platform and a highly skilled team of developers to deliver online learning services. In exchange, they collect a portion of the university’s tuition revenue. This model is problematic because it subjects academic quality—the core mission of a college—to the demands of the market.

  For many students, the value of an online education depends on the nature of their major. STEM subjects, particularly, require hands-on labs and other training. These aren’t easy to simulate. And even in other disciplines, online education can be demanding. Hours of self-directed work are required to coordinate online lectures, video supplements, assignments, reading and class discussions. This kind of rigorous commitment isn’t for everyone, and the number of people who successfully earn a degree solely online remains relatively small.

  The COVID-19 pandemic may have skewed results in the short term, but it has also given researchers a chance to test how online education works on a global scale with a control group bigger than any they could dream of. This randomized trial will give us clues about whether online education is as successful at boosting college completion and earning power as prepandemic research suggests it is.

  Online Education in the Aftermath

  Since the pandemic began, more students have taken classes online than ever before. Some enrolled exclusively in online courses during the lockdown, while others chose to combine on-campus and online classes—also known as hybrid or blended learning. The flexibility offered by these new models can have long-term benefits for students and institutions.

  A study by two economists found that bachelor’s degree-seeking students at a large public university who took all their major requirements online were more likely to graduate in four years and saw a slight decrease in time to graduation relative to those who completed their coursework on campus. This is just one example of the ways that universities are evolving decisively toward a hybrid model.

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  The new options for getting a higher education will continue to grow, but not all students will find the right fit in a strictly online environment. Some will still prefer the socialization and interaction that comes with traditional classroom learning. Others, however, will embrace the opportunities provided by new, flexible ways to learn—and it is important that schools make these options available.