In the recent
student protests at Columbia University in New York City, the university
administration decided to use on-line classes as a way to mitigate the
potential danger to students. Globally, on-line classes were widely adopted
during the Coronavirus pandemic to keep students from spreading the virus
through proximate contact with each other. These examples may suggest that
on-line education is a means to be adopted under extreme circumstances. This
article presents an alternate view; that on-line education is an ideal solution
for a variety of reasons and whose time has come.
Distance
education, a precursor to on-line education, is not new. Some of the earliest
versions of distance education were correspondence courses as far back as the
1950s and 60s. Written course materials were sent by mail to students. The
students completed the assignments at home and sent in their answer sheets to
be evaluated. The quality of these programmes was not very good and they did
not receive any recognition from companies looking for qualified candidates for
potential hiring.
In the 1980s, a
different form of distance education began in the United States. In these
programmes, video tapes of lectures were recorded and mailed out to students at
different learning centres. A sizeable group of students watched the tapes at
these learning centres. Proctored exams were conducted at these learning
centres. This form of distance learning was a major improvement from the
earlier correspondence courses. However, its major drawbacks were a lack of
direct communication between the faculty and students as well as among the
students.
The next
development in distance learning was streaming videos, which allowed students
to stream lectures instead of watching video tapes. This made the access to the
lectures more flexible. However, there was still no direct communication
between the faculty and students, and among the students. All communication was
through a learning management system (LMS) such as Canvas and Blackboard. The LMS
contained all the relevant course materials, including videos and lecture
notes. Communications could be either via the LMS or via email.
The current form
of on-line education uses live, on-line classes where the faculty delivers the
lectures and the students can choose to either attend the lectures live, or
watch the taped lecture at their convenience. The system permits the students
to either type in their questions or comments during the lecture, or to speak.
This allows for a classroom atmosphere that more closely resembles a typical
in-person classroom. In some cases, students can also turn on their cameras and
can be seen as well. The extent to which this is possible depends on the size
of the class as well as the network bandwidth. It should be noted that, in
India, several students still shy away from speaking in on-line classes, let
alone turning their cameras on. However, this is likely to change over time.
So, what are the
main advantages and disadvantages of an on-line education system? There are
three major, and compelling, reasons in favour of on-line education. First, it
allows educational institutions to expand their academic offerings to a larger
student population without a large scale increase in classroom capacity. This
is especially important since most existing universities have limited capacity
to increase the number or sizes of classrooms. For residential universities
there is an additional need to provide residential accommodation for students
if the student strength is increased. In an on-line environment using virtual
classrooms, the one major expense is in the creation of the computer and video
systems for transmitting on-line classes. This is relatively easier than
creating more physical space.
The second major
advantage, especially in a country such as India, is that on-line education can
help bring education to a larger section of the population without having
students travel to a limited number of locations where high quality educational
institutions are situated. With a population that is spread out over a very
large geographical expanse, including a number of rural areas, providing access
to quality education is a major challenge for both government as well as
academia.
Every year,
cut-off percentages for admission to sought after colleges and institutes seems
to get further out of reach of a large section of the students graduating from
schools. In the last couple of decades, a number of colleges and institutions
of dubious quality have sprung up in the country in response to the increased
demand. It would be preferable for well established institutions to expand
their offerings via on-line classes as there would be an expectation of quality
from established institutes.
Finally, the
population where on-line education has a major impact is working professionals.
It has been well established that with technological change, and new research,
a lot of what people learn in colleges and universities becomes obsolete in a
few years. This phenomenon has resulted in working professionals having to keep
their knowledge up to date either through evening or full-time courses. Evening
courses require that working professionals travel or commute to the place where
classes are held, which can consume a significant amount of time. Full time
courses require working professionals to take time off from work to pursue
their studies.
Both of these
options pose a major burden both, on the professional as well the companies
they work for. It is here where on-line education becomes a very appropriate
option. The classes for the on-line courses can be attended by the students
either at their place of work, or at home, or any other convenient location.
Moreover, if the student has to miss a class due to work requirement, the
lecture is available on tape. So, the student can get all the information that
he/she misses quite easily.
This is why a
number of universities in India and abroad have been offering on-line courses
successfully. Some examples are BITS Pilani in India, and the University of
Phoenix in the US. In addition to degree programs, leading universities such as
Stanford and MIT have collaborated in offering free on-line courses on various
topics. These are known as Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOC). Coursera,
Udacity, and edX offer a very large number of MOOC courses where the student
can choose to either attend for free, or pay a nominal fee to get a
certificate. The faculty who have recorded the lectures for these MOOC courses
are from leading global universities and the quality of the lectures is
excellent.
Although the number of
on-line courses and their quality has grown exponentially, there is still a
perception that the quality of on-line courses is inferior to live in-person
classes. It will take some time before the true advantages of on-line education
will be recognised in the society. Universities have to focus on maintaining
high quality and invest in technology and faculty who can deliver an effective
on-line experience for students. It may not be too long before on-line
education is accorded its rightful place in academia.
(This article is authored by Rajiv Gupta)
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