Online Courses: An Alternative Learning Source

JENNY LEE
Staff Writer

Although education has been associated with tangible textbooks, online courses are growing in popularity. Schools, such as the California State Universities (CSUs), the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and Harvard University, have begun to incorporate this system. Students can either take online classes as supplements to their campus courses or for a degree.

Taking online courses lessens a student’s concern over schedule conflict, commute issues, punctuality and tuition. The Sloan Consortium’s 2012 Survey of Online Learning reported that there were over 6.7 million students taking online courses in the fall term of 2011; the number increased by 570,000 compared to the previous year.

According to the UPenn Director of Program Development Marni Baker-Stein, UPenn’s online program was “designed to recreate the Penn experience online.” At UPenn, there are online courses for credit and non-credit directed toward UPenn students wishing to fulfill graduation requirements and high school students searching for college experience.

“[The online system is] easier to access and more effective. It’s more convenient,” junior Ivy Dang said. “Students can finish at their own pace.”

However, cheating has been a concern for professors, since they do not know who is actually in front of the computer. While some schools abide by the honor code, others are considering implementations that help verify a student’s identity, such as iris recognition technology. Even so, this may not stop students from reading a cheat sheet or listening to answers from someone nearby.
Additionally, a survey conducted by Excelsior College and Zogby International found that 83 percent of executives consider an online degree as credible as one earned on campus. Nonetheless, there are still employers who deny online degrees from both accredited and unaccredited schools.

“If I was the employer, I would employ the person with a regular degree [acquired by attending class],” senior June Chen said. “I don’t learn as much if it’s online. There are too many distractions.”