Does Online Education Mean Alone Off-Campus Education?

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Today online education has gained much prominence around the world due to the flexibility, affordability and easy accessibility it offers to aspiring learners. Although numerous students around the world are now opting for online courses over traditional classroom learning, many still believe that studying online can be a rather lonely experience as you will need to study by yourself at your home. But this notion is completely inaccurate. Studying online does not mean that you will be studying alone. Take a look....

Supporting online students

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When we are talking about online learning, it becomes imperative that we carefully consider course development to ensure desired student outcomes. However, that is simply not enough for developing successful learners.

Jacqueline Moloney, executive vice chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, said “Some institutions, eager to jump in the field, think once they’ve developed their online courses, they are set to launch. But many neglect to prepare their institutions to support online students with services customized to their needs.”

In 2012, Babson Survey Research Group surveyed 2,800 education leaders about the present enrollment patterns. The study found that almost 33 per cent of all learners were pursuing at least one course online. However, experts believe that there is often a lack of helpful support services that meet the specific requirements of online students. Kevin Kruger, president of NASPA–Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said “Unfortunately, this is an area that has evolved slowly on most campuses.”

Kruger observed that in universities there are two different camps- one camp has distinct sets of departments for traditional on-campus students with complete academic as well student affairs support; where as the other camp caters to online learners and offers much fewer options. In fact, institutes that have much less experience with online learning are more likely to ignore the value of sufficient support services.

Here we are going to take a quick look at how we can offer the required support to online students -

Develop effective orientation programmes

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According to Heather Chakiris, director of advising and learner success for Penn State World Campus, it is imperative that institutes take the necessary efforts for orienting new students to online learning.

She said “This is the opportunity to teach them where to go for help and to reinforce the behaviors that will help them to succeed online.”

Properly train academic advisors

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It is not feasible for online learners to visit the campus often and drop in to the office to learn about which courses and majors are available. Hence, an effective alternative must be offered to them by training advisors to effectively help distance learners.

Jacqueline Moloney said “Advisors are trained to respond to the questions that are specific to online students. Their goal is to be as flexible and accessible as possible.”

Offer social experiences

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Many institutes are striving to provide the traditional campus learning experience to their online learners. It is believed that a comprehensive experience which extends beyond academics and includes social opportunities will help online students learn better.

Moloney added “This is all critical to ensuring our online students have as rich and successful an experience as their counterparts who attend classes on campus.”

Create student feedback opportunities

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Stacey Ludwig Johnson, associate provost for academic services at Western Governors University, said “If we create mechanisms for students to provide feedback and demonstrate that we are listening by responding to the feedback, students will provide us with the information we need to serve them better.”

What do you think? Feel free to add to the discussion by sharing your opinions below. We would love to hear from you.

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