Online vs. Traditional Degrees

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, although many experts believe an online degree is simply not as effective as a traditional degree, studies consistently show there is little difference in the outcomes between online and traditional learning. The author points out that most experts agree that, for meaningful online education, there must be student-to-student interaction and well-timed, student-to-teacher feedback. The paper stresses that, to succeed in online education, students must be motivated to complete the course on their own, be comfortable in an insulated environment where they do not have face-to-face contact with other students and their instructor, and must be extremely comfortable with computers and technology; procrastinators will not survive many online courses.

From the Paper:

"While many more schools are jumping on the distance education bandwagon, the question remains, how effective is distance education versus traditional in-class education? Many educators believe there are many positive outcomes from distance education, as one expert notes, "Contrary to intuition, current Web-based online college courses are not an alienating, mass-produced product. They are a labor-intensive, highly text-based, intellectually challenging forum which elicits deeper thinking on the part of the students and which presents, for better or worse, more equality between instructor and student". However, much of the business community is still quite hesitant to recognize online education as a viable alternative to the traditional degree process."

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