Covering the business of education and training

The Sloan Consortium has issued its fourth annual publication on the state of e-learning in United States Higher Education.

The report addresses several key questions:

Fourth Question - Have perceptions of quality changed for online offerings?

Answer: Since the beginning of these studies four years ago, Chief Academic Officers have rated online learning outcomes (such as those for online bachelors degrees or online associates degrees) "as good as or better" than those for face-to-face schools.

Evidence: Most Chief academic officers now believe that the quality of instruction is equal to or superior to F2F learning.

In 2003 - 57% of academic leaders said online learning outcomes were the same or superior to f2f. The number is now 62%.

Those academic leaders who think online learning is clearly superior has grown from 12.1% to 16.9%.

Count me among the 16.9%. I have taught the same class online and f2f to the same kind of student in two different institutions. The online student comes much closer to achieving overall outcomes. The f2f student tends to whine more and get away with more...even I am the same person for both groups.

For those who have sat in a classroom and taken a class online (say, to get masters degrees online)...what do you think?

The complete report can be found here.