John McCain is thus far the sole candidate who has discussed online education.

As the presidential campaign nears a fever pitch, candidates have been expanding, revising, and flip-flopping their positions at an ever increasing pace. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a subject upon which either candidate has not opined. Yet, the campaign discussion surrounding online education is barely a whisper—surprising neglect for a topic that directly affects millions of Americans. Hit the jump for our assessment of both candidates’ positions.

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Tags: Online Education by editor
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Blackboard + open source = future?

The course management behemoth Blackboard has recently announced a partnership with the open-source course manager Sakai at Syracuse University. While the move is unlikely to inspire a great deal of confidence from the open source community—the partnership is at only one of thousands of Blackboard-using schools—it is a step in the right direction. Given the abundance of competent coders among students and faculty on most college campuses, it would make sense for universities to adopt open source course management software en masse. The implication for online schools is the same—each online program has its own specific needs in terms of how students are interacting or submitting course materials: students in a programming course require a different user experience than art students. (Click here for the full story over at Inside Higher Education)

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by editor
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Old school.

Anyone who has attended an institution of higher learning in the last several decades can attest to the astronomically high cost of textbooks. Students frustrated by the seemingly unjustifiably high price of course materials can take solace in the rising popularity of “open textbooks.” These books contain all the same content as their “closed” counterparts, with one important difference—they are free. While some online schools have been using free or low cost ebooks in the place of traditional textbooks for several years, the expansion of this trend to brick-and-mortar institutions is encouraging. Once again, technology first adopted by online schools is spreading to the mainstream. (Story via Online Learning Update)

Tags: Learning Technologies, Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by editor
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Are online degrees more acceptable today than they were five years ago?

The results of a recent poll conducted by career statisticians Vault, Inc. maligning the quality of online education have been widely publicized in the last week. But are the results as significant as many publications have claimed they are? Probably not. Moreover, most reports (in CNN Money and Yahoo Finance) gloss over the finding that does point to improving attitudes toward online degrees—83% of respondents stated that online degrees are more acceptable today than they were five years ago.

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Tags: Career Education, Online Education by editor
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One of the biggest barriers to creating an online learning environment identical in experience to traditional education is test proctoring. A provision in a bill expected to pass before Congress by the fall aims to resolve this issue by mandating that universities use biometric technologies to proctor online tests.

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Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by editor
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A deleted scene from the 2007 film I Am Legend depicts Robert Neville (Will Smith) attending a University of Phoenix course on epidemiology prior to saving the human race from extinction

According to a July 10 article in Science Daily, online courses taken by nursing and healthcare staff could prove essential in combating an epidemic outbreak. While the article’s headline is misleading–it’s actually about how an online course helped hospital staff learn to contain the risk of hospital-acquired infection–online tutorials could in fact be key to containing a real-life epidemic. The rapid distribution of information on online learning platforms makes it easy for a central authority to respond to a crisis by sending out an informational bulletin.

Tags: Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by editor
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The School of Athens by Raphael depicts the Academy founded by Plato in Athens in the 4th Century B.C.

While much has been said about the liberation of musical content as its free proliferation across the internet increases, attempting to locate this phenomenon in online learning—as some have—is fundamentally misguided. The experiment of the so-called “open” university is not a new one, and its failings have been well-documented: shoddy scholarship, inconsistent curricula, and ideological radicalism.

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Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by editor
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One of the most well-respected resources in the world of online education, GetEducated.com, is offering a $1000 scholarship to students currently enrolled in an online degree program. To qualify, you must also be an American citizen with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0.

For an application, go to their website (link) and download an application…then print it out and mail it to them (provided you still remember what that means).

Tags: Financial Aid, Online Education by editor
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Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, is one of the world’s foremost intellectuals and known for his use of assistive technologies.

Over the last decade, online learning has made earning a degree possible for millions who had previously been left at the gates of upper education. Included in this group are countless disabled individuals for whom pursuing higher education presented a serious challenge and often an even larger financial burden. Indeed, thanks to divers new technologies, online learning environments are being adapted to meet their needs–everything from customized input devices to text-to-speech programs.

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Tags: Learning Technologies, Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by editor
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Montgomery Burns, of Simpsons fame, made much of his Yale MBA. An online MBA could put you too on the path of becoming a tycoon.

While the economy has taken a downturn over the last quarter, starting salaries for MBA graduates have risen by 5.1%, according to a July 3 report in BusinessWeek. For many working adults, the question of upward mobility weighs heavily in the decision to pursue an online degree. While now is as good a time as ever to enroll in an MBA program, the monetary return you will see on your educational investment will vary depending on several key questions. Here’s a run-down of the questions, and the answers, surrounding the decision to pursue a Masters of Business Administration.

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Tags: Career Education, Online Education by editor
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