The Effectiveness of Online Education and Online Degrees

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Introduction

            Online degrees and online education have become extremely popular. China Doll Publishing recognizes the significant importance of online degrees and education because, in many cases, these types of programs are the only option for many adult students to continue their educational pursuits without interrupting their personal and professional lives. We applaud the rise of these important and, in most cases, quality programs. Programs such as those offered by the University of Phoenix are user-friendly, informative, and challenging. Additionally, online institutions such as the University of Phoenix and similar institutions such as Argosy University , among many others, offer a full range of academic programs and degrees that can all be completed online. These degrees range from Associates and Bachelor’s Degrees to MBAs and Masters Degrees all the way to include DBAs or Doctors of Business Administration and traditional PhDs in Education or Psychology, to name but a few. If you are considering the value and worth of online education and online institutions then read this report in its entirety and it will enlighten you as to the quality of the online experience. Additionally, the online format also ensures that the custom writing services such as China Doll provides can be integrated into this online format since we have had many writers who work with University of Phoenix students especially, to complete both undergraduate and graduate degrees and the writers even logon on in some instances to complete necessary projects and coursework although you are encouraged to review all material as well. However, in addition to the extensive custom writing services that can be utilized to complete an online degree, there are other options in the Web environment that allow you to complete your degree in a virtual manner just as easily. For example, not only can all research be accomplished completely online in online databases but there are  even online research paper, thesis, dissertation and essay databases where you can purchase a pre-written paper that you can then use as a model for your own, reword it, use the sources or just use it for inspiration for your own.

Overview

Online degrees and online education programs, although equivalent in many respects to traditionally formatted distance programs, are differentiated from other distance programs in that they are strictly delivered via the Internet whereas distance programs can be delivered in various other media formats.  However, although the format may differ the overall concept is the same: to increase the educational options available to learners who seek or need alternate access options relevant to their education needs.  Online education (OE) has been defined as:

The virtual university is…not a single institution, but a web of educational providers that collectively distribute services to the client at the time, place, pace, and style desired by the client, with quality determined by the client and a variety of approving and accrediting bodies.

With this in mind it can be taken that OE is defined as delivered exclusively via the Internet or, alternatively, in tandem with or completely through the use of email or other Internet related technologies.  OE has evolved from the realm of fly-by-night diploma mills to be embraced by learning institutions at the highest levels of achievement and stature.  While the level and degree of acceptance of OE between the various institutions utilizing or offering it, there can be no debate about OE’s ultimate place in the future of education at every level. 

            OE is also referred to as either synchronous or asynchronous learning because the interaction between learner and instructor and learner and course material can take place simultaneously or separated by time and distance.  In other words, the learner may access the course material late at night and review the instructor’s comments and feedback at the same time, while the instructor and other course participants access the same material and feedback at any period throughout the day, evening or night.  It is not necessary or even likely that the entire course group will ever access the course material or learning material at the same time unless it is in a synchronous activity such as a scheduled chat room conference.  Increasingly, there are very few OE programs that even meet at all throughout the length of the course or program.  One method that many OE programs utilize to create the sense of interaction is to have online chat rooms specific to a course where learners can login and participate in group discussions.  These can be arranged either by the instructor, the students or groups that are formed to facilitate the learning process.  These conference type “classrooms” do not necessarily have to be a chat room; they can be facilitated through email or online postings that track conversation threads to facilitate coherent discussion of learning topics.  Interestingly enough, it has been found that these types of online meetings often produce more in-depth and meaningful commentary than would otherwise be elicited in the traditional classroom:

Electronic forums generate a lot of private information about students that might not be shared in an open classroom setting. Access to forums should be password protected. Student participation should be limited to academic comments; griping about the course or the faculty should take place elsewhere. We have created a private electronic lounge for general griping or discussion.

While much discussion can be created in a traditional classroom setting this aspect of classroom education has always been problematic for the instructor tasked with attempting to include every individual in the learning process.  By moving to an online forum type delivery program, many of the inhibitions that keep learners from participating in group discussions and activities are removed in the online environment: “Prior studies of computer-mediated communications in general, and Internet-based courses in particular suggest greater volume and more equal student participation in electronically-generated class discussions than in traditional classrooms…”.  While some traditionalists may argue that face-to-face time is invaluable and irreplaceable in terms of communication effectiveness and transference of meaning, this position is increasingly being shifted to the minority as new technology applications upgrade the quality of OE and common perceptions change.  However, OE is largely no different than other technological innovations that have revolutionized teaching methods and learning approaches in that there is no significant difference between an OE or an online degree and an education or a degree earned in the traditional manner.  Rather, the same differences that exist among traditionally delivered programs exist among OE programs. 

            These differences are related to course material, content and methodology rather than attributable to delivery methods.  In other words, the effectiveness of traditionally delivered courses is mirrored in distance programs as well as online programs as long as the course material is well structured and the delivery makes use of industry best practices: “the hundreds of findings of "no significant difference" really headline the fact that…students will learn the material equally well no matter what media are chosen”.  OE has taken the lecture format and created various methods to repackage and present the lecture material to learners in ways that are customizable and not time constrained.  Lecture’s can be contained online in a video file that can be replayed numerous times, stopped and played in slow motion and have other web related learning devices integrated with it, such as hyperlinks, help files, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and other course material immediately available.  This other material can consist of, among other things, the following: E-Mail, attachments in e-mail messages, mailing lists, electronic forums, software used by the program (tutorials), library resources (IDs, accounts, passwords), help line team, and various programs that can be installed on a personal computer.  A conceptual schematic of what an online course might resemble is included below.  Such schematics are important because the course itself as well as the interaction among the learners and the instructor is purely conceptual to begin with and for these programs to be successful it is important for the participants to fully grasp not only what the learning goals are but to also understand the dynamics of the group interaction in the virtual environment.  This conceptual grasp replaces, in a sense, the face to face interaction that is present in a traditional classroom setting and without it the participants tend to become displaced or marginalized.  The interaction is facilitated by the media of the Internet and the efficacy of the interface design of the institution offering the course:

  As can be seen in the schematic everything is centered on the leaning process in the OE model.  One of the most important aspects of the OE model is to ensure that the technological aspect of the process is not overly complicated or this sets up barriers to the learning process as well as increases the operating costs of the program.  The OE model if implemented correctly or at least effectively has the potential to extend the educational reach of an institution across the globe and to greatly enhance the learning experience of the participants.  Simply put, the resources available to the learner in the online environment are only limited by the constraints of the Internet itself and when combined with the learning organization’s online resources this makes an extremely powerful argument for the OE business and education case. 

Theoretical Background

            The theoretical underpinnings of education have traditionally relied on an objectivist understanding of education as a product where knowledge is prepackaged in some respect and can be readily acquired by the learner given the proper market or classroom:

The constructivist concept of education views learning as resulting from complex interactions, beyond what has been termed as the objectivist or knowledge transmission model in which “knowledge” is viewed as a product that can be transmitted one way from the professor (or the textbook) to the students. Basically, constructivism means that as people experience something new they compare this experience to internalized knowledge constructs based on past experiences, and then modify their constructs accordingly…

The constructivist approach mentioned in this passage is extremely relevant to the OE model because if it is taken at face value to be widely valid then the online environment, rather than being an alternative approach actually becomes the preferred approach to education.  The available methods of how curriculum can be packaged and repackaged in the online environment allow the learning organization to present the material in numerous fashions that respond to the various learning styles of their students.  It’s a truism in education that not all learners learn alike and while the traditional classroom/lecture environment tends to disregard this observation, the OE environment tends to build its entire program off of this understanding.  This aspect of the OE model dramatically changes the role of the educator.  In the OE environment the resources via the Internet, the world wide web and the online, course specific material, mean that the onus of presenting material has shifted from instructor to computer making this particular role of the educator irrelevant:

The availability of courses delivered over the Web will lead to a shift in teachers' responsibilities from teaching academic subjects to teaching social and interpersonal skills. All academic subjects will be taught online, and as a result, teachers will no longer be expected to be experts in these subjects.

While students may immediately appreciate this shift from over reliance on the lecture fed knowledge system that treats the material like a production line, the established traditionally oriented institutions may not welcome OE.  In fact, many traditionally oriented institutions tend to be overly critical of OE because of its abuse by some organizations that have not properly invested in the infrastructure and development expenses required to build a solid OE program.  It is important to note that quality OE programs require substantial investment of resources before any revenue can be generated from the program.  Yet, conversely, any organization can lease some web space, post some content and market an online degree program without substantial investment in any area.  This has led to some abuses that have colored popular opinion of many legitimate OE programs.  Yet, the theoretical base of OE programs that rely on the constructivist approach to education that takes it as a matter of course that the same material must be packaged in numerous ways and then invests in an OE model that executes on this understanding will win the learner over as well as the educator:

…it is also important to provide students with customized tools to support instructional activities, learning activities, and the design and integration of multimedia. These tools begin with a good student orientation that allows students to practice skills in the new online environment and begin to draw analogies and relationships with their experience of classroom-based learning.

The OE program must provide a menu of choices within the curricula that speak to all learning styles: visual, tactile as well as textual.  In so doing, a strong constructivist based OE program can be built in to a full service degree offering institution that serves the learner of the 21^st century. 

            Accepting that the way learners acquire knowledge may evolve over time as technology and methods evolve is essential to understanding the direction and full potential of OE as an educational model.  While traditional learning models have been based on the operant conditioning approach of early 20^th century psychologists such as Skinner and Pavlov, OE offers a more applicable basis for a learning model that reflects the evolutionary advances of society and technology leading into the new century.  A new body of knowledge vis-à-vis learning theory is currently being developed that will account for and justify the use and advancement of OE.  The sheer popularity and implementation of OE across the broad tapestry of educational institutions in the US speaks volumes about its potential while the fact that even previously recalcitrant organizations, such as Harvard, now offer distance/online programs leading to degrees indicates that OE programs are not a fad nor even a trend, but a requisite educational channel.  Some of this research has already been undertaken by Lynch who examined the type of interactions that would normally occur in the traditional classroom setting and built a translation model demonstrating how those interactions translate in an OE program.  This paradigm is important to organizations planning or implementing an OE program because these interactions must established or recognized in some respect because they are expected by the participants and they provide a strong pragmatic base on which to frame the rest of the course material:

In fact, as the chart above indicates, every type of interaction that takes place within the traditional classroom setting can be replicated in the OE environment; often through several various methods simultaneously.  These methods of interaction are both synchronous and asynchronous and ensure that a degree of camaraderie and mutual objectives are developed between the learners and between the instructor and the learners. 

            Institutions considering an OE program need to consider the OE model in terms of three dimensions: technology, course material and teaching.  Each dimension must interact and support the others equally or the program will fail.  The technology must allow the course material to be presented synchronously and asynchronously as well as in different formats. The course material must be reformatted to reflect the advantages of OE rather than the strictly linear, assembly line structure of traditional models and the instructors must ensure that students utilize each component of the OE program and are regularly accessing the course material as well as the interactive venues for discussion, whether synchronous or asynchronous. 

OE in Development and Training

            While many OE programs have been embraced by both traditional and non-traditional organizations and the individuals and organizations availing themselves of these OE programs use them for various purposes, one of the most prevalent uses of OE has been in the professional development and training area as in certificates that demonstrate competency in a specific task or in professional graduate degrees.  OE programs used in this vein are both cost effective and effective at skill-set transference:

…to quickly acquire a new skill set or enhance your employability in a new specialty such as online learning facilitation, consider a specialized certificate. Online certificate programs consisting of two to five courses can be completed in under a year and cost as little as $1000… consider programs that allow you to earn a certificate then apply your certificate credits toward a master's. That strategy will enable you to change your skill set quickly…

OE programs have certainly enhanced the continuing education model of traditional institutions and of the ongoing training and development needs of corporate bodies that have sought ways to enhance these initiatives while not interfering with productivity and attendance at work.  OE programs are ideal for both settings because they ensure that non-traditional students or older learners with a greater number of commitments outside of education are allowed access to the same learning opportunities as others. 

            The OE model is ideal in these applications because, especially in reference to corporate users, they already have the technological infrastructure requisite to support an OE program.  But, even traditional educators have embraced OE programs as a way to enhance or offer ongoing training and skill development for their educational staff: “Through Virtual Greenbush, the Cheney school district bought an online technology training program that teaches Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, PhotoShop and several other common programs…”.  These professional development programs are an excellent method for organizations to become learning organizations which has been shown to improve productivity through various means.  Additionally, traditional learning institutions that make use of OE programs for professional development and experience success in their deployment are quicker to realize and more able to deploy OE programs for public consumption within their traditional educational model.  One method that such traditional educational bodies have found to better integrate OE into their network of extant programs is to blend the OE program with some degree of on-ground attendance requirement, usually in the form of a short residency: “…Syracuse's students attend one-week on-campus residencies. The school offers residencies in January, May, and August; each combines group project work with a concentrated class and lecture schedule” and “Of the more than 300 accredited graduate programs profiled in GetEducated.com's Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools guidebook series, only two-thirds are completely campus-free”. While the majority of work and material is transacted in an online format in these programs, they do require a short residency or series of residencies to complete.  Additionally, residencies are usually limited to the full degree programs rather than skill oriented certificate type programs.  Goral notes that most certificate type programs once strictly held through in-service type scenarios, especially for educators, are now almost exclusively offered in online formats. Clearly there is a seismic shift in education that is in its early stages.

            Much of this shift is being spearheaded by the technology companies that have made such programs possible.  IT companies have the knowledge, skill-sets and technology infrastructure to execute online learning programs without too much of a burden on their internal resources:

Oracle University's clientele includes many of the Fortune 500 companies, such as EDS, Compuware, AT&T, IBM, and Lockheed Martin. Oracle also supports small- to medium-size enterprises, small consulting firms, and many individual consultants worldwide. "The bulk of our training is on basic Oracle technology skills, but we have many certified students who upgrade their credentials to the latest Oracle releases," says Pirie.

These OE programs implemented by leading technology companies have forced traditional education institutions to accept the fact that OE has applicability across the educational experience and in many different settings.  In response, many colleges and universities have mirrored these technology OE courses in their IT programs as their first foray into OE and to offer these OE technology related courses in partnership with a technology company.  These types of partnerships are win-win for both the IT company and the educational institution because the educational institutions gain immediate technology expertise while the IT company gains competent educational theory on which to establish a program.  Additionally, the IT field ensures access to an immediate body of potential employees who are familiar with the equipment and programs upon which they will be working as well as are equipped with a solid educational background through the completion of a degree program regulated by an accredited degree granting program.  Such programs are especially prevalent in the field of IT security because of the wide implementation of Internet based applications across all industries.  IT OE security programs are being implemented by public education institutions as wells as private organizations at an increasing pace.  This development is reflective of the importance placed in maintaining not only the integrity of corporate networks but also of university and educational institution networks that are even more exposed by the growth of OE programs.  Yet, IT security programs are a natural fit for the OE model because of the nature of the content; similar to the IT field in general.  For professional development and ongoing training, OE is no longer simply an option but a necessity to stay competitive.  As more universities, employees and corporate users of OE enter the market, OE’s acceptance will be greatly enhanced:

…employers are also jumping on the bandwagon. For one, it's typically less costly than in-class training and employees can gain valuable skills without losing time at work. And for employees who choose to log on and earn advanced degrees, it signals to the company that the employee is interested in staying for the long-term.

Companies in all industries benefit from making OE programs available to their staff, whether that entails building their own OE program or simply contracting the function out or just compensating the employee for completion of the coursework. 

Quality of Programs

            The quality of OE has probably been the greatest detractor of OE since its inception.  Yet, the quality of OE has risen dramatically over the last five years as the level of the institutions availing themselves of OE has increased.  Additionally, the technology platforms that OE programs are built on have improved and become more customizable which has allowed for a broader range of courses to be shifted to an OE format.  Also, OE competencies have been improved over time and the ability of the institutions and of their instructors to effectively manage courses and programs in an online environment have increased rapidly.  Suddenly, OE programs are de rigueur rather than avant garde. 

            Perhaps one of the most important aspects of OE and its implementation to have occurred over the last several years is that unofficial standards have developed that organizations have begun to benchmark off of:

SCORM--sharable content object reference model--promises to bring together the best of current standards and provide a common ground for e-learning in the future. Such seemingly diverse bodies as the U.S. Department of Defense, major academic institutions, and rival vendors of e-learning products are working together to get to that happy place in the (not so distant) future.

These standards based SCORM practices offer established guidelines in technology platforms and operating procedures that considerably shorten the learning curve for organizations as they establish OE programs.  The most important aspect of OE programs for organizations to consider is that the programs and courses must be functional from the start as the learners are the ultimate shareholders in the enterprise.  One of the most important principles contained in standards such as SCORM is the concept of establishing reusability within course content. This is not to imply the reusability of course content itself, but rather the programming objects over which course content is overlaid that allow course content to be accessed online through browser and other web oriented applications.  Initially, the development of such programming objects is what consumes much of the resources in developing an OE program.  If proper thought is placed into the design of the OE program then much of these types of development costs need only be incurred once. 

The online medium must be incorporated into the traditional education system with care but is certainly possible because of the widespread implementation of distance education courses has laid the foundation for them: “…50,000 university-level courses are now available through distance-education delivery systems” and “The newest form of technology-based learning--increasingly called "e-learning"--is gaining a foothold in school districts across the country, some of whom like Charles County are devising their own approaches”.  The presence of the online medium in the distance education milieu and as its own independent system referred to as e-learning demands that the medium be given its own body of universal standards as well as accreditation system.  While many institutions do seek currently accepted accreditation for their online programs, the extreme novelty and effectiveness, or potential thereof, implies that OE be measured for accreditation based on a set of independent standards developed for OE as well as traditional accreditation for the course content itself. 

Moving in such a direction, Shrives recommends that online institutions be measured against a series of very practical benchmarks initially: 1) do the institutions have regional accreditation through the traditional accreditation bodies, 2) is the course curriculum up to date and interesting, 3) does the OE institution partner with outside entities to monitor and develop employee training and education, 4) do all the professors have PhD or doctorate degrees, 5) do the professors have experience and wide knowledge within their field, and finally, 6) what is the character of the alumni as far as employment and current positions.  Establishing guidelines and metrics based on these general standards is a good starting point to ensure that OE maintains the same fiduciary approach to education that traditionally oriented institutions are tasked with.  For the most part, OE institutions are following these basic guidelines as a matter of course.  They know, for instance, that if they cannot achieve accreditation through the established accrediting bodies then their students’ courses and credits as well as degrees will not be accepted by other learning institutions or potential employers.  In fact, many hypothesize that, for the most part, OE institutions have done an admirable job developing their programs and infrastructure to deliver the OE products because they continually operate from an inferiority complex.  T+D Online points out that largely the perception of OE as being inferior in some way is a perception contributed to some degree by traditional learning institutions that find themselves being increasingly marginalized unless they themselves embrace OE.  While there are admittedly diploma mills that are operating in an OE environment, in fact, these types of institutions existed in mail order form long before the OE environment existed.  They should not be associated with OE simply by virtue of their building a website and advertising online. 

As previously mentioned, even Ivy league institutions have been faced with the dilemma of developing competent online programs or risk finding themselves being viewed as lacking innovation and cutting edge competencies in educational methods: “That kind of quality control also is central to Fathom, a for-profit company developed last year by Columbia University.  While many state institutions and other private traditional educational institutions have moved to establish OE programs with certain alacrity because they recognize this movement is certainly more than a trend at this point, the Ivy League institutions seem to be experimenting before embracing the approach:

While some sit on the sidelines, many others are dipping a toe, or more, into the water. They're developing distance learning courses as extensions of existing campus offerings, and forging strategic partnerships with companies specializing in e-learning. As part of the experimentation "At least 75 percent of universities of any significance are looking at this, or dabbling with it to some extent,"

Plainly, even the nation’s top universities are being forced, whether willingly or otherwise, to embrace the OE model in one form or another.  Some researchers make the point that the greatest challenge with a fully-developed OE program is not developing a program or gaining proper accreditation and acceptance but actually developing the competencies in the learners or course participants to ensure quality is achieved in the OE program.  Yoder mentions that a set of four basic competencies need to be developed within the learner in order to ensure a fair chance of success within the OE program: 1) self discipline, 2) willingness to participate in online, either synchronous or asynchronous, discussion, 3) resourcefulness in accessing course material and reference material online, and 4) independence in order to be able to appreciate the delivery medium.  What many OE institutions have realized is that the greatest amount of money and resources can be invested in the OE program itself but if the potential learners and participants are also not trained, groomed or prepared in some fashion to employ and succeed in the OE program both they and the program will be a failure; or, at the very least, an underutilized resource that is a drain on an organization’s operating revenue. 

            One of the dysfunctional aspects of the OE environment regarding online discussion groups and postings pertains to the surprising lack of reserve on the part of the participants in what is posted.  OE institutions must be prepared to develop mechanisms to ensure that inappropriate postings and conversation threads are either prevented outright or removed immediately as a certain amount of conflict has been found to develop in some OE environments: “Conflicts often arise in online…class discussions as students discuss sensitive ethical…When conflicts arise in an online class, the activity system of the class has to be kept in balance for the course to continue functioning effectively”.  Maintaining in class decorum in an online environment is extremely important to the overall success of the program because not only can a lack of it reduce the effectiveness of the OE program it can nullify any positive perceptions of the OE program developed over time.  Changing common perceptions of OE programs is difficult and achievements in this regard are not to be treated lightly or risked with a lack of preparation for this known risk.  Alexander points out that developing goodwill in the sense that an OE program is respected and accepted, especially among educators themselves in professional development programs, can have a huge impact on the overall perception of OE among the general population.  Eventually, OE programs will be as commonplace as higher education itself.

            The most well designed OE program must also account for instructor perceptions and misperceptions of OE. Arbaugh found that immediacy behaviors on the part of instructors in OE programs have a significant impact on the success and disposition of the course or courses.  That is instructors who are moved by a stimulus to maintain quality in the education model, OE or otherwise, attempt to gain a sense of immediacy or more intimate contact with the learner.  This type of concern is usually very much appreciated by the learner and unfortunately is difficult to obtain in any educational format much less OE.  However, there are certain activities and tools that instructors can avail themselves of in order to move in this direction and these are the type of skill sets and activities that are trainable: “Compressed video course delivery, which has less impact on immediacy behaviors, is indeed positively associated with student learning and satisfaction…”.  In other words, streaming video delivered via the web should be a component of every course offered via OE because it increases the sense of immediacy and within the OE environment.

Conclusion

Observations

            OE is still in its early developmental stages and it is difficult to gauge the character of what OE will ultimately morph into in the next five to ten years.  However, considering the depth and scope of the OE programs in development and the people and institutions driving OE’s development, there is little doubt that in the near future OE will be as accepted as and well regarded as any other type of degree program:

Funded by Larry Ellison and Michael Milken…UNext has licensing deals with an academic consortium made up of Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon University, and the London School of Economics and Political Science…More than $100 million is being spent on the effort…

While participants and investors such as Larry Ellison and Micael Milken do not by themselves ensure widespread acceptance of such programs they certainly advance the case for OE more rapidly than might otherwise be the case.  Yet, in addition to these innovative individuals and other top line universities, other entrants in the OE market have brought stability and acceptance to OE: “on-line course offerings by highly respected institutions such as Kaplan Educational Centers, Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal add an entirely new dimension of credibility to the online degree”.  These degree products offered by these well-known brands in the professional and educational communities only ensures that OE is destined to be not a mere educational option but, in fact, is likely to become the modus operandi of education in the future.

The Future

            Currently there are two major educational institutions in the US that are driving the future growth and acceptance of OE: Harvard and the University of Phoenix.  Harvard, of course, demands no introduction as it is the most elite learning institution in the US and arguably the world.  Harvard currently has developed its own OE program that it grew out of its original distance education program: Harvard Extension School.  While still classified under the distance education moniker there is little misperception that this program is in fact a well integrated OE degree granting program that is, in most cases, staffed by regular Harvard professors.  Harvard’s endorsement of the OE model cannot be understated.  The University of Phoenix is the US’ largest private university and actually operates both on ground and online programs.  Yet, its largest growth area has been its well-developed, regionally accredited programs that are fully integrated into the online environment.  The University of Phoenix is fully accredited to offer degrees completely online up through a Doctorate which, in deferral to traditional programs, does require some residencies.  However, the growth and success of the University of Phoenix as well as the active embrace of OE by Harvard seem to characterize the increasingly positive acceptance of OE throughout the world as the next great leveler of education for all levels of society.

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