Online Education Is Growing in Interest, Particularly at the University Level - Essay Example

INFO SYSTEM Contents Introduction 3 Power/Knowledge 4 Oral and Written Culture 6 Conclusion 8 Reference 10 Bibliography 11 Online education is growing in interest, particularly at the university level. Discuss whether online-only degrees would be as effective as campus-based university education. Introduction Today more number of students is involving themselves in the online college courses as compared to campus based education. Roughly about 3.2million students enrolled with one online course. According to Sloan survey conducted on online learning showed that about 62% of the academic officers believe that learning through online education are as effective as face to face instruction and out of 10 every 6 officers agreed to the fact that e-learning is critical for the long term strategy (Powers, 2006). Online enrolment has grown over the years by almost one million students as compared to previous years. Surveys made in about 2500 colleges have revealed that approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in online courses in the year 2009 and by 2010 the number went on to 6.1million students. However there might exits some clouds but the sluggish economy continues to drive the growth of enrolment (The Sloan Consortium, 2012). While the growth of online enrolment is substantial but since 2006 the increase in online course has increased only by 9.7% as compared to 21.1% in 2009. The report by Sloan Survey of Online learning acknowledges that the dip in the growth rate speculates that the increase in the online education may lead to ultimate slowing. However the growth of online enrolment exceeds the growth of overall higher education. Certain disciplines in online education system experienced gains and losses in between 2010 and 2011. A major proportion of psychology and education programs saw major decline in enrolment whereas engineering which had the highest proportion of declining enrolment in the year 2010 experienced improvement in the previous year. Online education has become an integral part of most of the education system, colleges and universities (Lytle, 2011). However it is true that online programs are flexible and also provides various kinds of benefits but all courses in the education system cannot be enrolled for online courses. Thus the online system education has both benefits as well as drawbacks for the students and the education system as whole. The discussion on whether online-only degrees would be as effective as campus-based university education is broadly explained taken into consideration two important factors which include Power/Knowledge and oral and written culture. The two principles would help to put light on the discussion and make it clear as to whether online or class room based education is effective and why. Power/Knowledge Campus based education has always had an edge over online education system because of the power it had and the knowledge that it aimed to provide its students. As stated above, everything cannot get online; there still exists subjects which require training and knowledge from the professors and practical training made available by campus based learning. Although with the rise of internet campus based education system have not been completely transformed but it is definitely going to have an immense impact in the near future (Scagnoli, 2005). In the competitive economy the concept of knowledge management has gathered importance in both academic and business practises. Creation of knowledge is an important factor and forms an important part of knowledge management. Knowledge management can be well associated with online education system with the introduction of technologies which contributes in sharing and also in transferring the valuable knowledge without any geographical boundaries. Through online education system transfer of data, information as well as knowledge takes place from the sender o the receiver in an effective way. The transfer of knowledge and creation often involves the educator’s and the learners associated in the online learning systems. Educator’s role is to transform the knowledge to the respective learners. The educators (sender) have the ability to transfer the explicit knowledge by way of course structure. The online environment tens to provide with a large number of databases which helps it to facilitate the process which converts explicit knowledge into more systematic ones. Knowledge practise aims to convert the tacit knowledge into form of explicit knowledge. When the tacit knowledge of the educator which might be in the form of mail, document reports and memos is made explicit, knowledge gets stored in the creation centre which allows it to get shared by the learners. Web technology often facilitates the practise of knowledge management by rapid dissemination of knowledge, codified knowledge and providing individual access to specialised knowledge. Visual presentation helps the educators to codify its tacit knowledge like pictures, text, video, diagrams and also animation. Knowledge can be obtained from skilled and experienced person and the educators categorise and classify knowledge for various purposes like retrieval and storage. An online education system provides the media to store and codify the stored knowledge for the learners in order to access it and use it. The educators collect information from various different sources and make it available online for the learners through multimedia presentation. Therefore it can be said that online education system has the power and knowledge to educate the children and the learners to a very great extent. Important features of online learning process include self paced learning and self directed. The autonomy of the learners increases the opportunity of finding information’s and at the same time motivates the learning group to create new knowledge. The online learner usually has much greater responsibility as compared to class room learners as they take control of the learning process and purpose of learning. Online learners have the advantage of using the search engine to study and find online resources (Huang & Liaw, 2004). Online collaboration enables the teachers and the students to share and access information among themselves. The Ultranet tend to represent investment system in the online platform enabling the teachers, students to collaborate and interact and build an educational content. Such as teachers across the miles has the ability to co-develop materials and interact and share the resources online. The online learning platforms are also used to customise the programs to meet the needs of the students outside the education system and help those students for whom the mainstream schools are not an option (Barber & Mourshed, 2009). But the role of class room based knowledge can be ruled out completely. The traditional form of learning provides knowledge based on the knowledge on one educator whereas in online the students as well as the teachers have the option to share online resources and make use of the various sources through search engines. Thus it can be state that the online education system is as effective as the class room based learning and with the development of technology majority of the students have been enrolling themselves into online courses. In addition, the course fee structure is much less than class room based learning allowing more students to join the online education system. Oral and Written Culture The next principle chosen is oral and written culture to measure the online education system. Culture has always formed an integral part of the education system. Culture can be defined as a way of life of a group of people. Henderson (1996) defines culture as the manifestation of the pattern of behaviour and thinking which results from the adaptation of the group towards the changing environment. With the help of computer, educational and internet technologies, the society has been experience a rapid growth and with its ability to reach more diverse audience and learners, the major issue on cultural difference are given prior importance as compared to previous years. With the widespread usage of distance learning along with different technologies which aims to provide the service, cultural background of each student tends to have an impact on the ability and efficiency to understand and learn a given set of content (Sieffert, 2006). Online interaction is often considered as an interaction which gets drawn from Hofstede (2001) or Hall (1990). Hall’s framework involves ideas as to how different form of culture perceives times and practise communication. Hofstede classified culture based on five dimensions which are, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism in comparison to collectivism, masculinity versus femininity and long term orientation. The cultural background of the students tends to influence the benefits which the students have gained from online study and how did these students view the challenges. Above all the essential framework of learning online offers no ways of understanding as to how collaboration takes place among the members of different nations, different culture are supposedly to be afforded by shared nationality. The global online class, when they are viewed through lens which tends to equate culture through nationality tends to be culturally heterogeneous. Ideas which are associated with culture consist of values but the ideas consist of limited usefulness in the process of examining the intercultural interaction, interpersonal skills in the online system of education. Assuming that culture can be derived online, in classroom with the teachers, students along with the institution are successfully accorded as no role of culture in it. Therefore to examine the interaction of various culture of learner’s online, culture based on the globalised classroom needs to be understood as well as explored. To deal with the globalised online classroom Raybourn et al. (2003) have suggested incorporating “third culture” in the online education system. This would provide an understanding where the members will be the co owners and also participants. The concept of “Third culture” can be regarded as attractive but at the same time problematic too. “Third culture” looks attractive because it implies a collaboratively and constructed location inclusive of members and allows validation of multiple viewpoints. It can be said that every member of the class is engaged with interaction as the third culture exits for only those who tends to participate actively. However the problematic part lies on the fact that the negotiation process is regarded as distinct third culture. The idea to third culture also implies that it has a continuing function as well as validity even after its completion which is highly in contrast to experience which portrays that student do not always experience the same class as having the same kind of feeling. The “third culture” which has been described by Raybourn et al. (2003) tends to incorporates members of various cultures which are deemed to be different in various essentials. Third culture has also been regarded as essentialist as it defines culture among particular combination of individuals in specific context and time (Hewling, 2005). Another option made available to deal with the globalised online system of education is to consider culture as “doing”. Conclusion Therefore based on the above discussion on online education system and applying the concept of online education with two important principles, power/knowledge and culture it can be said that online education has come a long way since its inception and has the ability to further enhance the growth of education system. More and more institutions are offering online courses making it easier for students to enrol themselves from any geographic location. As per statistics, about 3.2million students enrolled into online courses and it are expected to grow at a steady rate in the near future. As per a study conducted it has been revealed that online education seems to have scored much higher rate of acceptance than the class room based leanings. Online learning provides access to new technology, ample amount of information available from various sources and equally distribution of knowledge among the students. Thus it can be concluded that online learning and online degree are equally effectives as campus based learning. However the role of class room based learning cannot be completely ruled out. Even in today’s changing environment, this class room based learning tends to have an impact on the learners as well as in the education system and thus they also form an important part of the education system along with the online system. Reference Barber, M. & Mourshed, M., 2009. Shaping the Future: How Good Education System can become great in the Decade Ahead. [Pdf]. Available at: < http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/southeastasia/knowledge/Education_Roundtable.pdf> [Accessed 14 August 2012]. Hewling, A., 2005. Culture in the Online Class: Using Message Analysis to Look Beyond Nationality-Based Frames of Reference. [Online]. Available at: < http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/hewling.html> [Accessed 16 Aug. 12]. Huang, H. M. & Liaw, S. S., 2004. The Framework of Knowledge Creation for Online Learning Environments. [Online]. Available at: < http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/119/113> [Accessed 14 August 2012]. Lytle, R., 2011. Study: Online Education Continues Growth. [Online]. Available at: < http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2011/11/11/study-online-education-continues-growth> [Accessed 14 Aug. 12]. Powers, E., 2006. Growing Popularity of E-Learning. [Online]. Available at: < http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/10/online> [Accessed 14 Aug. 12]. Scagnoli, N., 2005. Impact of Online Education on Traditional Campus-based Education. [Pdf]. Available at: < https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/2327/USDLA-Impact_OL-2-F2F.pdf?sequence=2> [Accessed 14 August 2012]. Sieffert, S., 2006. Placing Culture at the Forefront. [Pdf]. Available at: < http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/seiffert/seiffert.pdf> [Accessed 16 August 2012]. The Sloan Consortium, 2012. Survey Reports. [Online]. Available at: < http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/survey04.asp> [Accessed 14 August 2012]. Bibliography Bourne, J., 2000. Online Education, Volume 2: Learning Effectiveness, Faculty Satisfaction, and Cost Effectiveness (2000). Olin College - Sloan-C. Maeroff, G. I., 2003. A Classroom of One: How Online Learning Is Changing our Schools and Colleges. Palgrave Macmillan. Read More