Learning on Demand - 2009 Sloan-C Report on Online Learning

Learning on Demand, the 2009 report on the state of online learning in the United states has been by published by Sloan-C. The news release digests the findings and links to the full report.

More than 25 percent of all college and university students - more than 4.6 million individuals - were taking at least one online class in the Fall 2008 semester. This is a 17 percent increase over Fall 2007.

Here’s one of its interesting data points: 58 percent of institutions that have no online offerings believe that online learning outcomes are “inferior” or “somewhat inferior” to those obtained in traditional face-to-face instructions, while only 14 percent of institutions offering fully online programs classified online learning outcomes as “Inferior.” I am not sure that the report tells us what the results were from institutions that offered a mix of programs, and I am not sure that the report asks about the comparability of outcomes for blended instruction.

There is a lot more useful information in the report. Clearly, as the data point noted above suggests, those of us who are passionate about what online learning offers continue to have work to do to help our colleagues across the academy understand it and figure out how to best use it for the good of the order.