Internet Learning Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2012 | Page 57

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Internet Learning

Another major change in higher education that has impacted the proliferation of online
courses and programs has been the growth of competition. The limitations of geographical
location have largely been erased via the Internet. Competition for students in online courses, as
well as the proliferation of online offerings, has been especially intense among schools providing
educational opportunities for enlisted members of the military. Due to their deployment
challenges, the military relies on online programs, which are used to support military recruiting
and retention and to provide crucial professional development for service members.
Schools throughout the nation have looked to this evolving technological medium as a
solution to education delivery challenges and as a way to expand existing education markets. The
MPA-IG (Inspectors General) program at John Jay is such an example; that particular program
even requires student attendance at a conference of the Association of Inspectors General
(Hamilton 2010).The focus on technology and its inherent flexibility has evolved to the point
where some schools offer courses to be completed on handheld personal digital devices (Meine
2008). Despite this rush to distance learning, the medium and its accompanying technologies
have evoked mixed reactions among students, administrators and faculty, and have created a
number of new challenges.
It is clear that regardless of the reactions to online distance learning as a delivery system,
its use is expanding at an extraordinary pace. As Internet-based education has transitioned from
its initial status as “the classroom of the future” to a pedagogical mainstay, it has been subjected
to significant scrutiny by its proponents and detractors alike. Unlike its most prominent
predecessors in distance education (e.g., telecourses and correspondence courses) the
pervasiveness and visibility of online instruction have served to magnify its strengths (e.g., the
benefits that accrue to an asynchronous format) as well as its weaknesses (e.g., maintaining
academic integrity, especially in online testing).
For the delivery of academic information online to have become not only a viable, but
highly regarded and widely utilized pedagogy, the technology had to be affordable, efficient, and
user-friendly for all stakeholders. As a result, and by necessity, the initial concerns were focused
on the efficacy of such entrepreneurial systems as WebCT and Blackboard. Once most of the
concerns regarding delivery technology were resolved, a number of significant unanswered
logistical and academic questions began to emerge. With these thoughts in mind and considering
the rapid academic migration to online education, now might be the opportune, if not overdue,
time to examine the issues that are likely to impact the future directions of Internet-based
instruction.
Academic Issues and Concerns
Having been actively involved for more than 15 years with the proliferation of Internet-based,
post-secondary instruction, as both online instructors and administrators responsible for
development and supervision of online courses and programs, it is the authors’ contention that a
number of important issues are yet to be addressed.
Given the rapid rise in the popularity of online courses including so-called “hybrid or
blended” (some mixture of face to face and online delivery) courses, there appears to be a
significantly different, arguably even disproportionate degree of oversight of instructors teaching
online courses compared to those teaching in the traditional in-class formats, even when the
instructors are the same individuals teaching the same course. As a result, there appears to be a
growing belief that faculty autonomy is being subjugated to administrative imperatives in the