Should we require courses or programs to be labeled ‘ONLINE?’
August 30, 2010
15 Comments
Just thinking out loud here… Should colleges, universities, and/or P-12 schools be required (or encouraged) to indicate on student transcripts that a particular course or program is partly or wholly online?
There could be codes. For example:
- Wholly face-to-face
- Face-to-face with some online aspects
- About equal time online and face-to-face
- Online with some face-to-face aspects
- Wholly online
I’m not sure this is a good idea. But maybe it is. What’s the obligation, if any, to be transparent about the delivery of the learning experience?
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That may depend completely on what we believe about the effectiveness of these methods. Is one method so much more or less effective that it requires notifying others about how the learning occurred?
The unintended consequence at this stage of online learning could very well be that institutions reviewing student transcripts will be inclined to give lesser credit to delivery methods they deem to be less effective.
On the other hand, it could provide some interesting data on possible correlations between graduate-preparedness and course delivery methods.
It’s the quality of the teacher, not the media use to transfer information that counts. Just because a student received the credit sat in a brick building doesn’t mean it was effective. Personally, I have found e-learning to be less engaging.
Well, if we wanted to be completely transparent, we would have the transcript indicate things like:
- teacher is a notoriously easy grader
- lots of group work, who knows what this kid did?
- AP course curriculum is stifling and way out of date
- kids allowed to use spell check and Internet for papers
You get my drift. Online, offline, or blended: these are not the defining characteristics of the rigor of a course. Transcripts are lowest common denominators of student records.
Well said. The mode of delivery is not the deciding factor, but the quality of learning.
Steve – I love your comment and completely agree. Also quite witty.
Labelling delivery might help the long-term research agenda, but that doesn’t help students who believe they have met outcomes required to graduate and/or for acceptance into next-level opportunities. I think diplomas and transcripts should be silent on delivery factors.
A course completed is a course completed. I don’t think we’d indicate on a transcript the type of brick and mortar school the student attended (large, urban,poor, unqualified teachers, etc).
However, I DO think it wise for virtual schools to advertise these features when promoting online learning. We’re grappling with terms right now as we construct criteria and a process to review online courses in California. Definitions abound, but it looks like the Allan and Seaman definitions of Traditional, Web-Facilitated, Blended/Hybrid, and Online courses will prevail.
The method should not effect the content and quality of the class.
That said I have not taken an online class that was decent. The class we took on sped inclusion was a complete joke. They broke every rule they were telling us to follow. As someone with learning disabilities I found it somewhat humorous and very painful physically to complete the class. Bad color choices made the screen unreadable. The audio/video portion rivaled the worst 1970′s film strips for brain numbing delivery.
I agree with Brian. In support of Brian’s comment I would like to iterate that institutions should clearly set out the delivery mode and the per unit costs of the comparative components. Education is not always free.
Allow me to share an example. My wife and I, both educators, host overseas students. One student was undertaking a Masters degree. She had paid the not inconsiderable tuition fees.
Upon arrival in Australia and commencing the course she was surprised and annoyed to discover that 50% of the programme was delivered online. The components delivered online attracted the same fee as those delivered face to face. It was ridiculous. The fact that the components were to be delivered online was not spelt out in the marketing material.
I also think it was pretentious of that faculty to assume that the online components were comparable to the face to face components in terms of quality and value. Sure, they will appear the same on a transcript but should the cost be the same?
Regards, John
Colleges, universities, and/or P-12 schools might have course delivery information available should another school request it; that is, it could be available but not required. The delivery of information means little in today’s educational contexts, however.
As a side note, it would be interesting to research this question to see how one’s prior experience with online education influences one’s perspective.
I would prefer that colleges or universities have a video of every professor instructing a class so students can choose those who don’t use lecture and Powerpoint as their only means of differentiation. Of course this is completely off the point…
I believe on transcripts for our high school online courses they are identified as “online”, or at least they are in our student information system. The reason(s) why I do not know. I wonder if this is something that is being noticed on transcripts for college admissions though?? Just a thought. Is this something important for students to put on a resume’, whether the online course experience came in their K-12 years or college years?
Scott McLeod and I did some research with human resource directors across the US to see if they would hire principals with online credentials or online degrees. The major theme found is it would be really, really difficult to get a job if the school district knew the degree / credentials were received online. But the kicker really was the notion of quality and rigor. The respondents noted they were open to the idea if they knew the programs were high quality. The question for me is how do we demonstrate these programs are high quality and rigorous. Granted, this question should be asked of traditional programs too. But the point is that folks that hire are not questioning traditional degrees (as much), but they do question those earned online (and even those blended programs).
FYI and as a plug, the School Administrator’s September issue is on Doctorates Online.
http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorIssue.aspx?id=16252
Since there is a large body of research that says that there is no significant difference between learning delivery between online and face-to-face, I would find it irrelevant and snobbish. (http://nosignificantdifference.org/)
I would not want to work for a school that didn’t recognize the value of having faculty that were comfortable and proficient with online learning. I also would not want to work with a school that was ignorant of the latest research and directions in education and only cared about how administrators perceive online teaching and learning instead of finding out what it actually is.
I want the transcripts to reflect that though a student went to an ivy league college, that 85% of their courses were taught by grad students with no training in pedagogy, learning theory, or with no experience in teaching.