Posted on 12/22/2014 8:11:37 AM PST by Academiadotorg
Students may be increasingly opting to get their degrees online but universities still dismiss them as a fad. “Udacity does have one partnership with a research university—Georgia Tech,” Udacity’s vice president of business development Clarissa Shen said on December 16, 2014 at the Center for American Progress. “They have grown their program four fold.” For most brick and mortar universities, enrollment drops are the norm.
It turns out that, although online courses are not capital intensive in the traditional sense of real estate to support brick and mortar classrooms, they do not come cheap. At the CAP event, Anne Wintroub of AT&T, which partners with Udacity, said that her corporation laid out $1.5 million for three nanodegree programs.
Nevertheless, Udacity and Shen have proven themselves more in touch with what employers are seeking in employees than most of the oldest established universities. “In an academic environment, when you collaborate, that’s called cheating,” Shen said. “In the work place, it’s expected.”
As well, Udacity, to an infinitely greater degree than traditional universities, stays remarkably ahead of the curve of the latest innovations in the marketplace. “When Android released its latest program, we were teaching it that day,” Shen said.
Shen herself, “co-founded a K-12 start-up,” according to her company bio.
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Academe needs to become cutting edge in the financial efficiency of its service delivery.
they’re still in publish or perish mode. They may have the perish part right.
online schools seem to be just a way to mooch off guaranteed government student loans. worthless degrees which put students into non discharchable debt.
(doesn’t the NYT own Kaplan online univ?)
“In an academic environment, when you collaborate, that’s called cheating,” Shen said. “In the work place, it’s expected.”
I find this to be an interesting and intriguing statement.
While studying for my degree it was extremely important to me and any prospective employers in my future to prove I knew and comprehended the source material.
Once I was hired it was proven to me over and over again that production by committee was the finest way to produce a mediocre product at a hugely inflated cost. Which quite frankly my employer, (a government contractor), made lots of money on.
However when the job was critical and/or time sensitive one it always went to the top one or two performers in the group who always managed to pull it all together. Usually at the cost of sixty to seventy hour weeks and gallons of caffeinated beverages and take-out food.
Two completely different philosophies of management and responsibility. They both work... but only one of them works consistently well until the top performer burns-out and says “no more”. The other way just keeps swapping out bodies or in most cases increases body count. Why not... the Tax-payer is paying for it in the end.
Those that ignore online degree programs will either fade away or become “niche” Universities that will be much, much smaller than they are now. Almost like Trade Schools.
Universities have themselves to blame, however, for their rampant greed, slavish adoration for book-burning, and general bigotry. But mostly their greed.
Actually the Washington Post owns Kaplan but the latter is showing a profit and the former isn’t
If the left wingers continue to control the brick and mortar universities, with the exception of a very few universities, they will be like buggy manufacturers and the Dodo bird.
Georgia Tech has an online degree program which they are expanding.
This is not a “worthless” degree or some kind of grant scheme.
“However when the job was critical and/or time sensitive one it always went to the top one or two performers in the group who always managed to pull it all together. Usually at the cost of sixty to seventy hour weeks and gallons of caffeinated beverages and take-out food.
Two completely different philosophies of management and responsibility. They both work... but only one of them works consistently well until the top performer burns-out and says “no more”.
Been there and done that as one of the one or two top contributors. I finally gave up and took early retirement and saved my marriage, relation with my sons, my health and sanity.
or printing companies and milkmen.
The Brits had it right all along: intellectual skills need to be developed and tested individually, while “collaboration” is rightly learned on playing fields (of whatever type).
Business isn’t begging for some additional level of collaboration capabilities, only traditional spoken and written language skills.
This is not a “worthless” degree or some kind of grant scheme.”
The jury is still out on what GT’s online degree program will be worth in the marketplace, since it is still relatively new.
Work flows to the competent....
American university professors are the most over-paid, under-worked, and useless profession on the planet.
I do not believe that you are suggesting GT is lowering their standards for online students. Nor that they are creating a 2-tiered degree system (online versus on-location).
Do you think that the individual employer will be slow to accept the concept?
The reality is that a degree from GT is.... a degree from GT. If an employer is rating students on method of lecture delivery and not experience + qualification + interview then I am unimpressed with the employer.
I remember when some warned that turning in work via email was “risky” and that non-traditional night school students would be regarded as somehow “lesser degreed.”
The Administrations that work to fight online degrees are concerned more with losing their local power than educating. A great reason for them to die off as quickly and with as much pain as possible.
Adapt or die. So to speak. :)
Fixed it.
I’m trying to think of another but drawing a blank.
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