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Feature

Online Education: A new avenue of learning

Edward Apurba Singha

Nowadays academic Institutions with help of modern telecommunication facilities unveil a new avenue of learning, formally known to us as online education. Although most of us are not familiar with this trend but this system gradually gaining the popularity. As the name implies, online education is totally based on a virtual environment and in some cases, it conquers the setbacks in traditional education system. For instance, if you are a busy person and have no time to go for a classroom based learning you deliberately consider the online degree to fulfill your needs. Aside from this, you also feel free from financial burden and physical difficulties due to the location difficulties. You simply need some technological knowledge, relevant computer equipments, and a lot of self-discipline.

Today, you can earn a degree from a renowned university without having your physical presence in their campus. Chronologically many colleges and universities start offering online courses and degree programs on market-oriented subjects. There are even consortiums of universities, such as Canadian Virtual University (CVU). CVU offers no courses or degrees itself, but simply acts as a portal for courses from 13 universities across Canada. There is also the Global University Alliance that is a consortium of nine schools from the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands. There are even schools that are complete, stand-alone virtual university without any physical infrastructure.

The crucial issue regarding online degree is its credibility. Until recently, in many circumstances the online degree was not equally judged with the degree earned from an established university in a conventional process. However, HRM officers give precedence to the traditional degree rather than the degree earned from an Internet-only institution. But in the field of IT the scenario is slightly different. Naturally, it is essential to update the IT knowledge in order to maintain the compatibility with the new age technologies. It is indeed a difficult task for colleges or universities to update their regular curriculum frequently to integrate the changes, while it is easily possible in their online degree programs.

You need a computer, a broadband Internet connection
and some sort of self-preparation to initiate your journey for the online degree. First, select the subject and then search for the institution that offer the degree online and have experience in such area. You must be aware about the accreditation of your desired college or university. After completion of enrollment, you stay connected with your institution through their website. This website provides all information required to successfully complete your mission.

Unlike traditional classroom based learning, the Internet based learning gives you more liberty and flexibility to continue your learning process. For instance, it is not mandatory to attain the class at the specific time; instead, you can attain it at your convenient time. Here specialized software considers as a classroom and you enjoy the multimedia facilities to learn the particular topic. You can also communicate with the instructor by email, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and instant messaging. To do your assignment you can join a virtual workgroup, solve the problems and finally submit it online. During exams, you take part an online evaluation process and get your score online. Depending on the program and institution, distance learning may consist of synchronous (live) sessions or asynchronous (non-live) sessions. Transcripts and notes from lectures are archived, so you can always go back if you missed something. If there are live sessions with discussions among students, you can go back to those as well. Assignments may even be returned with audio clips so your instructors can convey their tone of voice along with their comments. Printed documents may be sent to you through surface mail, or you may have the option of printing them yourself or reading them online.

During the selection process, you must collect adequate information to avoid the pitfall of fake institutions. There are numerous fake institutions available in the Internet constantly offering online degrees with no authorization. Therefore, analyze A-to-Z before you makes a decision. You can remember the following suggestions to make a right decision:

Get a clear view about the teaching method and course materials.

Learn about exams and the evaluation process of assignments.

Investigate the facilities that enable students to communicate with each other as well as with instructors.

Confirm about the qualification of instructors. Nowadays some instructors are theoretically qualified but not efficient enough to conduct the online activities.

Know the background and reputation of any college or university for the particular program are you interested in.

Ensure library facilities and other online resources to support the learning process.

At present online degree does not dominate the society like traditional degree. But this situation is short living. If more people start depending on it and able to exhibit their potentiality, it will get more credibility and hence change the present trend of education.