D.W. Burger (dwburger@ucdavis.edu)
Wed, 19 Jan 2000 20:10:53 -0800
STUDY OF ONLINE EDUCATION SEES OPTIMISM, WITH CAUTION
The University of Illinois last week released its Online Pedagogy Report,
describing benefits as well as limits to Internet-based education. The
report is the result of a one-year study by 16 of the university's
professors to determine the ways in which online classes are effective and
ineffective. The group received comments from professors who said that
some students are more likely to participate online than in person, and
that students seem to put more thought into written rather than oral
discussions. However, undergraduate students should not take all
of their classes online, and schools should not offer undergraduate degrees
completely online, with some exceptions, the report says. In addition,
professors should limit online class sizes to about 20 students in order to
keep classes unified and motivated, the report says. This contradicts the
views of some online education advocates who argue that a key benefit of the
technology is its ability to reach a large number of students
inexpensively. (New York Times Online, 19 Jan 2000)
The UI Report can be viewed online at:
http://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/tid/report/toc.html
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