Will Online Courses Put College Professors Out of Business?

From the Marshall Memo #448

In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Bethany College economics professor David Youngberg describes his experience taking a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from Udacity, and gives five reasons he believes courses like this one aren’t about to replace bricks-and-mortar colleges – yet:

• It’s too easy to cheat. Discussion boards are nice for the exchange of ideas and students seemed to be respecting the honor code against posting answers, says Youngberg of his not-for-credit course. But with higher stakes, he believes that will crumble. “Despite our best efforts, the proliferation of cheating is higher education’s dirty little secret,” he says. “Take away the classroom and you’ve made a bad situation much worse.” 

• Star students can’t shine. “It became immediately clear to me that even if I excelled at this course, no one would know who I was,” says Youngberg. “Networking, either with my fellow students or with the professors, was virtually impossible.” For an online professor to write a meaningful letter of recommendation for a student would be a stretch.

• Employers avoid weird people. Getting an unconventional degree could serve as a signal that this person is off the beaten track, perhaps a troublemaker.

• Computers can’t grade everything. This is especially true of essays and presentations. 

To train and evaluate the skills of writing and public speaking, online courses will have to invest in human graders. 

“Why Online Education Won’t Replace College – Yet” by David Youngberg in The Chronicle of Higher Education Aug. 17, 2012 (Vol. LVIII, #44, p. A19-20), http://bit.ly/MUPpxf