Online Degrees - What Are They Worth?
As the spread of globalization continue to shape economies around the world in this century, the knowledge requirements to operate in these environments will continue to evolve.
To this end, online education has become a convenient avenue where people may build their credentials inlieu of a job or for the sheer joy of the pursuit of knowledge.
What are these degrees worth? Are they proof that learners have mastered the necessary concepts making them capable of contributing significantly to their field of study? This paper identifies the necessity of online degrees in an era when speed plays a critical role for those economies hoping to maintain a competitive advantage.
It looks at how the said degrees may create a generation without the necessary analytical, synthesizing and communication skills necessary to function in constantly changing environments.
This generation of pseudo-learners will possess the physical copy of a degree but may lack the skills often associated with higher learning -the end result is the inability to effectively function in demanding organizations.
The paper provides guidelines which leaders in online education may use to ensure that students are effectively prepared to function in constantly changing environments and provides clear warnings of the pitfalls of ineffective preparation.
Online degrees -their role A Google search to find a 'list of online universities in US' on January 11, 2011, yielded over 5 million results.
While a closer scrutiny of the results did not generate a specific number of these institutions, a database of accredited online education programs, OEDb, was able to rank 40 nationally online colleges for 2009.
As these universities continue to grow as indicated by the 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning which revealed that enrollment increased by approximately one million students when compared to the prior year, there permanence is arguably quite clear.
This permanence is driven in part by the need for higher education in an extremely competitive market place as well as the affordability and convenience offered.
21st century organizations have been revolutionized by technology and the ever shrinking world that globalization continues to create.
These two driving forces have created an environment where knowledge by convenience, efficiency and speed is a new need -a need which seems to be filled through online education.
Fulfilling this need is critical as businesses operating in these environments are driven by similar factors.
Online education therefore has the propensity to provide enrollees with a learning experience which will not only benefit the individual at his convenience but has great implications for businesses looking for that competitive advantage.
Haythornthwaite, and Kazmer corroborated the initial portion of the prior statement when they summarized that online education offered a unique opportunity for those wishing to further their education but is unable to attend a physical structure because of work obligations or other circumstances.
Like almost any service, online education has its drawbacks.
Picture the fictitious scenario below.
Jeff has always known that education credentials play a critical role on resumes.
Not only will he be more marketable with a degree, he will also possess that educational status that so many in his job lacks; finally he will be known as J.
C Coombs PhD.
With this in mind, he applied and got accepted to one of the top universities.
The first week was easy, and comprised mostly of a series of introductions and lectures about Online Learning.
The second week was more challenging; he had to respond to other posts by classmates.
As he made the initial post, the critiques by his tutors were disheartening as they thought his posts lacked clarity and dept.
This did not faze Jeff, as he had gotten to this level hearing the same comments.
He knew what he had to do and he did it -his two friends were English majors and were always in need of money and so they became his new employees.
For four years they did his research and completed over 70% of his assignments.
While the scenario above is fictitious, it is a practice with possibilities and which has the potential to grow.
One just need to examine the number of students leaving high school who are barely functional but who may get the urge to participate in Online education and the ramifications are alarming.
While some universities seem to design their assignments to minimize cheating, many have no such structures in place.
A lack of these structures to erase cheating may not only lead to eroding the value of degrees provided by these universities; the university's integrity is compromised; businesses are left at risk of hiring less than competent employees; and where pay scale is based on academic achievements employers are cheated.
The end result is that in all spheres the competitive advantage of organizations is threatened.
What can online universities do? While this list is by no means exhaustive, the following suggestions may prove useful: 1.
Create weekly discussions where students' participation via webcam or other camera devices counts as a graded assignment.
According to Lathrop and Foss students feedback via these medium gives instructors an advantage in knowing the capabilities of students.
2.
Ensure that there is an initial face to face contact with students for each semester where they are given a prompt and a writing sample is demanded based on the prompt.
This will give tutors an idea of the writing style of each student and provide a reference for other writing pieces.
3.
At least once every two months a proctored writing exam should be administered 4.
Timed online exams where exams are structured differently but the content is the same.
This will prevent telephone conversations with other students while the test is in session.
The benefits of Online education are immense especially in this era, however their effectiveness in creating students with the skills necessary to function will be the critical factor determining their worth.
References: Haythornthwaite C.
and Kazmer M: (2004).
Learning, culture and community in online education: research and practice.
Peter Lang Publishing Inc.
New York.
New York.
Lathrop A and Foss K: (2005) Guiding students from Cheating and plagiarism.
Unlimited Libraries Publishers.
USA.
http://oedb.
org/rankings http://sloanconsortium.
org/
To this end, online education has become a convenient avenue where people may build their credentials inlieu of a job or for the sheer joy of the pursuit of knowledge.
What are these degrees worth? Are they proof that learners have mastered the necessary concepts making them capable of contributing significantly to their field of study? This paper identifies the necessity of online degrees in an era when speed plays a critical role for those economies hoping to maintain a competitive advantage.
It looks at how the said degrees may create a generation without the necessary analytical, synthesizing and communication skills necessary to function in constantly changing environments.
This generation of pseudo-learners will possess the physical copy of a degree but may lack the skills often associated with higher learning -the end result is the inability to effectively function in demanding organizations.
The paper provides guidelines which leaders in online education may use to ensure that students are effectively prepared to function in constantly changing environments and provides clear warnings of the pitfalls of ineffective preparation.
Online degrees -their role A Google search to find a 'list of online universities in US' on January 11, 2011, yielded over 5 million results.
While a closer scrutiny of the results did not generate a specific number of these institutions, a database of accredited online education programs, OEDb, was able to rank 40 nationally online colleges for 2009.
As these universities continue to grow as indicated by the 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning which revealed that enrollment increased by approximately one million students when compared to the prior year, there permanence is arguably quite clear.
This permanence is driven in part by the need for higher education in an extremely competitive market place as well as the affordability and convenience offered.
21st century organizations have been revolutionized by technology and the ever shrinking world that globalization continues to create.
These two driving forces have created an environment where knowledge by convenience, efficiency and speed is a new need -a need which seems to be filled through online education.
Fulfilling this need is critical as businesses operating in these environments are driven by similar factors.
Online education therefore has the propensity to provide enrollees with a learning experience which will not only benefit the individual at his convenience but has great implications for businesses looking for that competitive advantage.
Haythornthwaite, and Kazmer corroborated the initial portion of the prior statement when they summarized that online education offered a unique opportunity for those wishing to further their education but is unable to attend a physical structure because of work obligations or other circumstances.
Like almost any service, online education has its drawbacks.
Picture the fictitious scenario below.
Jeff has always known that education credentials play a critical role on resumes.
Not only will he be more marketable with a degree, he will also possess that educational status that so many in his job lacks; finally he will be known as J.
C Coombs PhD.
With this in mind, he applied and got accepted to one of the top universities.
The first week was easy, and comprised mostly of a series of introductions and lectures about Online Learning.
The second week was more challenging; he had to respond to other posts by classmates.
As he made the initial post, the critiques by his tutors were disheartening as they thought his posts lacked clarity and dept.
This did not faze Jeff, as he had gotten to this level hearing the same comments.
He knew what he had to do and he did it -his two friends were English majors and were always in need of money and so they became his new employees.
For four years they did his research and completed over 70% of his assignments.
While the scenario above is fictitious, it is a practice with possibilities and which has the potential to grow.
One just need to examine the number of students leaving high school who are barely functional but who may get the urge to participate in Online education and the ramifications are alarming.
While some universities seem to design their assignments to minimize cheating, many have no such structures in place.
A lack of these structures to erase cheating may not only lead to eroding the value of degrees provided by these universities; the university's integrity is compromised; businesses are left at risk of hiring less than competent employees; and where pay scale is based on academic achievements employers are cheated.
The end result is that in all spheres the competitive advantage of organizations is threatened.
What can online universities do? While this list is by no means exhaustive, the following suggestions may prove useful: 1.
Create weekly discussions where students' participation via webcam or other camera devices counts as a graded assignment.
According to Lathrop and Foss students feedback via these medium gives instructors an advantage in knowing the capabilities of students.
2.
Ensure that there is an initial face to face contact with students for each semester where they are given a prompt and a writing sample is demanded based on the prompt.
This will give tutors an idea of the writing style of each student and provide a reference for other writing pieces.
3.
At least once every two months a proctored writing exam should be administered 4.
Timed online exams where exams are structured differently but the content is the same.
This will prevent telephone conversations with other students while the test is in session.
The benefits of Online education are immense especially in this era, however their effectiveness in creating students with the skills necessary to function will be the critical factor determining their worth.
References: Haythornthwaite C.
and Kazmer M: (2004).
Learning, culture and community in online education: research and practice.
Peter Lang Publishing Inc.
New York.
New York.
Lathrop A and Foss K: (2005) Guiding students from Cheating and plagiarism.
Unlimited Libraries Publishers.
USA.
http://oedb.
org/rankings http://sloanconsortium.
org/
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