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It is time for a second look
at those websites, to help YouTube generation get it right and get it
now – AIBS Online calls on online learning providers to clean up their
act ...
 Believe
it or not, online education is gaining momentum and will soon be a
fully acceptable and valued path to a good career. According to a
recent YouGov poll conducted in the UK of people aged between 25 and
44 without degrees, a huge number of them - 48% - wish they had earned
a degree. Of the results, some are especially worth noting:
Only 3%
of those polled said that the best option for adult wishing to
continue their education would be to go to a local university with
18-21 year olds, suggesting that the society is ready for a new
approach to education provision not involving compulsory classroom
attendance.
It seems
that students often find themselves battling with work and family
commitments coupled with the pressures of continuing their education.
Online learning provision addresses the needs of this group.
Pascal
Wattiaux, of Disruptive Play and P W Sport Ltd, who is advising the
International Olympic Committee and the organisers of the London
Olympics of 2012 said during his speech in the 'Training in Action'
conference hosted by Giunti Labs in Italy this year that
"E-learning,
and particularly the use of serious games and simulations, is an
exceptionally efficient and cost-effective way of giving people the
knowledge and skills they need,"
he said.
"And it is only now that the technologies exist to deliver this sort
of learning. Innovations in learning such as these should help
European organisations to remain competitive in the world economy,
despite increasing competition from elsewhere in the world."
The
debate rages on in this month’s Economist Debate Series where the the
editors of
The
Economist
invited readers to contribute to the topic
“Effectiveness of Technology - Does new technology add to the quality
of education?”
This debate, hosted online, engages such authorities in
the field as Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of
The Commonwealth of Learning and Dr Robert Kozma, Emeritus Director
and Principal Scientist at SRI International.
It is
only understandable that in this climate the majority of UK
universities and colleges offer online courses these days. Or do they?
As I
attempted to find an accurate picture of the student experience of
obtaining information about the available online education, I found
that many of the so called “online” courses are only delivered as part
of the university’s ‘normal’ classes, and are not available to
out-of-campus students, whereas other courses offer only a single
component delivered online and the school hastily tags it as an online
course.
Most
universities are eager to be perceived as e-learning friendly, yet
their websites do not provide the basic information students would
expect to find when undertaking a decision to enrol: structure of the
course, duration, level, prices and assessment modes. Often, despite
advertising the course as online, the information given applies to
on-campus delivered courses, with on campus fees, which tend to be
much higher due to the costs providers incur through hiring lecturers
and providing the physical facilities.
Many
providers sadly ignore the one-click formula, with many websites
requiring extensive browsing to find the relevant information. Out of
the 29 “online universities” in the UK, as listed on the
elearningeuropa.info
website, I found only one of those websites user-friendly. The
University of Derby had a clear list of fully online courses with
transparent fees structure and straight-forward course descriptions.
 One major player on the UK online learning arena, had a confusing or
non-existent system of pricing different for each delivery centre,
often forcing students to email for this basic information, while
cleverly fishing for their contact details.
The website of another
major traditional source of open learning, historically favoured by
mature students wishing to obtain a university degree
in later life by home study, could prove to be a tough cookie for the
average student. There is no course duration and courses are
fragmented to individual modules with little indication of the level
of study. The language of points, credits, confusing entry criteria
and assessment modes, could frustrate many students.
Students
planning to venture into online learning should keep in mind the
following questions to ask of the student advisors (if unable to
locate it online):
1.
Is my
chosen course delivered fully online?
2.
Is my
chosen course a correspondence course with partial online support?
3.
Will
any part of my course require classroom attendance?
4.
Are all
of the course materials available to students off campus?
At the
American International Business School (AIBS Online), we adopted
instant messaging systems throughout our “main” website and the
Virtual Learning Environment to allow students almost instantaneous
access to the information they are looking for. In addition to this,
students will find quick links to the crucial information from our
home page, and a clearly understood layout friendly to users coming
from many different cultures.
The fully
online programmes provided by AIBS Online have been clearly divided
into professional and academic courses so users find relevant
information quickly. Comprehensible pricing structure, fields of
study, and career-to-course matching exercise generated very positive
feedback.
Traffic
from individual and institutional users of our website has been
carefully directed to specific areas, so as not to confuse our
potential customers and allow for efficient searches.
My
journey through the UK online education jungle concludes with a call
to all online learning providers. We have enough work on our hands to
change the society perceptions about online learning. Let’s ease this
transition with providing transparent, quick and graphically rich
information well suited for the YouTube generation.
Joanna Oman
AIBS Online Co-founder
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