How To Select an Online University

People who want higher education but who don`t live near a college or university offering courses they want used to be out of luck. No more. Now it is possible to study almost any subject online. It may require more self-discipline to pursue a degree this way. However, students at online universities can attend classes at their convenience, making it possible to earn a living at the same time as earning a degree.

What to look for?

There are now many online universities. Some online degree programs are offered by traditional universities with campuses, while others only exist in cyberspace. Selecting the right school and being sure your degree will be recognized by potential employers is the first step. How can you tell whether a program is a real educational experience or a diploma mill? Here are some things to find out before signing up.

Look for a university with accreditation from a recognized accrediting organization. This is important because it means the school meets established standards of quality. Well-known universities like the University of Florida, Northwestern, Purdue and Notre Dame are examples of accredited institutions. The U.S. Department of Education recognizes universities accredited by one of the six accrediting bodies. Students who attend accredited universities are usually eligible for federal student loans and the course credits they earn generally transfer to other accredited institutions.

Picking a degree program

To determine if a degree program fits your professional and personal interests, review the curriculum and course descriptions in university web sites and course catalogs. Do they offer courses in subjects of interest to you?

To learn more about whether a program might be good for you, ask about the faculty`s industry experience and the scope and focus of their research. Do they have the appropriate advanced degrees for what they teach? Find out where the professors got their degrees. If all or most of them graduated from the same online university you are considering, this is a red flag, suggesting their academic credentials are weak. A real university will have teachers who have graduated from many different schools.

How students apply what they learn to their fields of expertise and to their communities are also strong indicators of a program`s value. Ask what employers, organizations and professional associations partner with or support the university. Talk to someone at the university and explain your educational goals and career plans. Whether you wish to advance your career, change careers, make a contribution to society or become more expert in your field, be sure the program you choose will get you there. One way to find out is to learn how the university`s alumni are doing. Alumni success or lack of it reflects the quality of a university and its programs. Ask for examples of how alumni are using the knowledge they gained in their professional and personal lives.

If the university accepts everyone who applies and can afford the cost, be suspicious. A real university will require each student to meet appropriate admissions requirements.

Online teaching is different

Make sure any online universities you are considering know how to deliver and support online courses and that you have the technology you need to take them. Do the faculty members know how to guide the classroom experience to ensure learning objectives are achieved? Are your computer and Internet connection up to the task? Assignments are typically posted online and discussions take place as threaded postings. Most online courses require students to log in and contribute to discussions a certain number of times each week. Many courses let you log in any time, anywhere as long as you meet the weekly course requirements.

What type of student support services are available? How responsive are instructors to student inquiries? What opportunities are there to interact with fellow students? This interaction enables students to gain knowledge and understanding from others with a wide variety of geographic, cultural and professional perspectives. The most effective courses, especially for adult learners with years of work experience, are those in which students gain the insights and perspectives of everyone in the class.

Can you afford it?

Though attending an online university allows you to live where you do currently so you won`t pay anything extra for living expenses while you study, there will be charges for books, tuition and fees. Find out what other expenses there will be, if any, to be sure you can afford your studies. Ask if financial aid is available, as some schools offer it to online learners.

Note that tuition and fees at online universities are often higher than what is charged at their campus-based counterparts. However, these schools offer personalized support and a convenient and flexible format geared for the adult learner. If a university`s tuition and fees are significantly less expensive than other online schools, double check on its accreditation to be sure it is legitimate.

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How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face to-face instruction?

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies^[1] released in May 2009, by the U.S. Department of Education, found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.

The meta-analysis of 51 study effects, 44 of which were drawn from research with older learners, found that:

1. Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to-face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.24 favoring online conditions.

2. Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction. The mean effect size in studies comparing blended with face-to-face instruction was +0.35, p < .001.

3. Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.

4. Most of the variations in the way in which different studies implemented online learning did not affect student learning outcomes significantly. Analysts examined 13 online learning practices as potential sources of variation in the effectiveness of online learning compared with face-to-face instruction. Of those variables, (a) the use of a blended rather than a purely online approach and (b) the expansion of time on task for online learners were the only statistically significant influences on effectiveness.

The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types. Online learning appeared to be an effective option for both undergraduates (mean effect of +0.35, p < .001) and for graduate students and professionals (+0.17, p < .05) in a wide range of academic and professional studies.

^[1] U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, Washington, D.C., 2009.

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Introduction To Online Learning

Online learning has roots in the institution of distance education, which goes back at least 100 years to the early correspondence courses. With the introduction of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the prospective for getting learner around the world increased to a great extent, and today’s online learning offers rich educational resources in multiple media and the capability to support both real-time and asynchronous communication between instructors and learners as well as among different learners. Institutions of higher education and corporate training were quick to adopt online learning.

Online learning has become popular because of its potential for providing more flexible access to content and instruction at any time, from any place. Frequently, the focus entails (a) increasing the availability of learning experiences for learners who cannot or choose not to attend traditional face-to-face offerings, (b) assembling and disseminating instructional content more cost-efficiently, or (c) enabling instructors to handle more students while maintaining learning outcome quality that is equivalent to that of comparable face-to-face instruction.

Different technology applications are used to support different models of online learning. One class of online learning models uses asynchronous communication tools (e.g., e-mail, threaded discussion boards, newsgroups) to allow users to contribute at their convenience. Synchronous technologies (e.g., webcasting, chat rooms, desktop audio/video technology) are used to approximate face-to-face teaching strategies such as delivering lectures and holding meetings with groups of students. Earlier online programs tended to implement one model or the other. More recent applications tend to combine multiple forms of synchronous and asynchronous online interactions as well as occasional face-to-face interactions.

In addition, online learning offerings are being designed to enhance the quality of learning experiences and outcomes. One common conjecture is that learning a complex body of knowledge effectively requires a community of learners (Bransford, Brown and Cocking 1999; Riel and Polin 2004; Schwen and Hara 2004; Vrasidas and Glass 2004) and that online technologies can be used to expand and support such communities. Another conjecture is that asynchronous discourse is inherently self-reflective and therefore more conducive to deep learning than is synchronous discourse (Harlen and Doubler 2004; Hiltz and Goldman 2005; Jaffee et al. 2006).

Modern online learning applications take advantage of a wide range of Web resources, including multimedia, Web-based applications, and new collaboration technologies that are a far cry from the televised broadcasts and videoconferencing that characterized earlier generations of distance education. Moreover, interest in hybrid approaches that blend in-class and online activities is increasing. Today`s online learning includes offerings that run the gamut from conventional didactic lectures or textbook-like information delivered over the Web to Internet-based collaborative role-playing in social simulations and highly interactive multiplayer strategy games

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Advantages of Online education

Online teaching is that technique of knowledge which is done by a computer with internet connection. It has gained wonderful success in last few years for both students and tutors. It is a win-win for both students and the teacher. The main reason behind this brilliant success is that online tutoring is free from time, distance and carrying. Moreover one-on-one tutoring enables both tutor and student to ask for clarification and discuss problems in details. Online education or training is a much alert way of tutoring because the tutor has to give time to only single student at a time. One-to-one tutoring provides students an extra advantage for asking questions with hesitating.

The main advantages of online education and training are following:

1. The main advantage that students get with studying online is that it allows the elasticity to calendar your learning and that with the console of your own residence. What you need for all this is to have only computer with an internet connection. Also student have their own understanding to select the time and date for tutoring sessions.

2. It is a lifeline for handicapped students who can not travel to have tutoring easily.

3. With the capability of online tutoring student can very easily learn foreign languages with help from suitable online tutors.

4. Students do not need to go far-away distances to have tutoring.

5. This tutoring can be taken in vacations also to keep yourself in touch with your subjects.

6. Online tutor companies offer 24/7 support for students which lets students to decide their own time for tutoring.

7. Online tutors are experts of their subjects and can play active role in attractive the ability of a student.

So, clearly online tutoring and online education is going to be a preferred way of learning

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The Easiest Way To Receive A Degree Is By Getting An Online Bachelor Degree

We have been so familiar to considering people go to school and acquiring their education the predictable way that it can be often a surprise for the popular of us why online degrees are now being offered. even though that we'd thought that only non-conformists would option to such actions, we have been wrong.

Did you even recognize that online education systems are a hit? Some people find this program much better than the standard way to go to school on account of its convenience. With this hard to believe convenience, online education is popular among the young and old.

Almost all people have difficulty calculating their time as well as income. Whether or not this has been an choice before, now, online education lets them handle both. Most people can work to pay back their education expenses. Nothing ought to be sacrifice for the cost of an excellent education.

You'll find out that lots of persons who are going to college and also working are able to have a complete day of work. That's because online education provides you with a means to do both. These techniques give them the education that they need without exhausting them with exchange from work to school and vice versa. as well, it enables individuals to get the most from their time.

what's more the fixed cost save through the lack of commuting, textbooks, childcare fees, or material, online courses are the very real meaning of comfort. When others don't want to just sit in front of the computer and lose the chance of a classroom discussion, others would rather study in comfy clothing, in the comfort of their own home.

All in all the vision in regards to the usefulness of the online educational system is subjective. However, the latest studies have in fact established that acquiring an education this way is a outstanding remedy for the working individual, striving to be successful in all possible areas of his life.

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On-line Education Has a great Number of Advantages

In this piece of writing, I am going to provide the readers with the reasons of choosing on-line education.

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•    On-line education is much more cheaper than the education in the usual learning institutions

•    On-line learning gives the chance to the student to earn money and to study at one and the same, while if you are a student of the traditional educational institution it is almost not possible to learn and to work at one and the same time.

•    On-line education gives the chance to bring up a child and to collect a desirable degree at one and the same time without creation a break in learning.

•    On-line education gives great quantity of the free time, as you do not have to concentrate classes.

•    On-line education gives you an chance to choose by manually which project and when you are going to make.

•    On-line education gives you an chance to accommodate earlier. If you want to receive your degree faster, you are welcome to do it, if you manage to manage with the entire demanded task in the shorter period of time.

On-line education has a great number of advantages, has not it?

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Benefits of Online Education

Most people understand that a high-quality teaching is essential for nearly any kind of professional career, but there are a lot of roadblocks that people face when they actually believe furthering their education.

Jobs, financial problems, time, and family responsibility are frequently the reason why many find that they simply cannot return to school to additional their education. luckily, with today’s technology anyone can take advantage of the benefits of online education.

One of the main benefits of online education is that it gives everyone access to a higher education. For those who live in a major metropolitan area, access to universities and colleges may not be a problem, but those who live in rural areas often find this to be the biggest roadblock to attending school.

Perhaps you live in an area that does not have a college campus close by, but it may not offer the education program that you need for the career you would like to pursue. Both of these are great reasons to consider the benefits of online education.

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To the point About Online Study

The organization of online study is transforming the way courses are qualified across the world. It is without doubt true. Distance learning courses have improved the educational opportunities for every personality. The working individuals who are required to increase their educational qualification but have no time to attend regular campus classes, this system of distance learning has been a advantage. Again this system of online learning is also helpful students residing in rural area, for mothers desiring to earn a higher degree while looking after their children. Moreover, international students may also take benefit of the broad range of online distance learning courses offered by different colleges and universities without availing a visa or leaving the town.

Maximum of the online distance learning courses are asynchronous. This means teaching and learning do not take place at once. These distance learning courses are ideal for learners who live in various time zones. Usually the professor will post the syllabus of the courses to a specific Web site, with a list of the related assignments that the pursuers must complete to earn the credit for that course. Pursuers of these online courses interact with their guide and other students via e-mail. Teachers and students may also communicate through open chats.

Any student who is pursuing distance learning courses online can plain that the ease of e-mail communication fosters an environment of dynamic interaction between professor and student, and among other fellow students. Technology also permits students to create online forums easily. This helps the students to collaborate on different projects. Professors send materials of distance learning courses through the Internet. The professors also send the students different links of other Web sites related to their subjects. The Web permits the pursuers to ask with expert individuals from across the world and delve freely into tangential aspects of any subject they are studying.

Moreover, communicating via Internet under online study provides international students an opportunity to practice English writing skills. Video conferencing facility has also contributed a lot in the enormous popularity of this system of learning. Since some of the distance learning courses require pursuers to have high-end computers along with high-speed modems in order to access the Internet, learners must make sure they have the proper technical equipment former making enrollment in any course - particularly that course in which learners need to exchange a lot of video and graphics materials.

One thing necessary for the international students to be aware of is avoiding the fake colleges and universities. Numerous online colleges and universities have emerged who just want to earn good money from individuals. The certificates provided by these colleges or universities have no value in actual. Easily spread up with one of such will only result in wastage of time and money. Therefore it is always better to undertake a thorough research before enrolling names. Web is the best place to gather information regarding these online universities. Several well known universities also offer online study facility for international students. The course fees of several distant learning courses are much lesser than the regular course fees.

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online syudy now more popular than newspapers in U.S.

Mobile sites are starting to break into the news market in a big way, too. 33% of Americans reported that they read news on their phones. I think it's a safe bet that the rise of the Phone and machine diplomacy had a little impressive to do with that. Pew also bring into being that Americans are involve yourself in the news procedure in large numbers. 37% had flogged, comment on, Face booked or tweet a news story.

Bearing in mind that you're presently online and evaluation news, you in all probability won't be traumatized to hear that websites are now authoritatively more fashionable than newspapers as a foundation of news in the U.S. That puts the Internet in third place for news, following local TV station and general small screen network according to a revision from Pew delve into center Internet and American Life Project.

TV news still tops the list, but exactly 60% of Americans now get their news from a mishmash of online and offline resource. Those online source take account of the web versions of newspapers, so although the print newspaper is clearly lagging behind web-based news, things aren't as awful for newspaper publishers as that makes them sound.

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