Assessing the Quality of Online Courses Remains a Challenge, Educators Agree

By DAN CARNEVALE

Neither federal officials nor accreditors offer much help, and private services are fledgling

Sandy Kelley was a little nervous about taking her first online course last fall. Although she had taken other courses at the same community college, she still had concerns about Web-based learning, what her instructor would be like, and what would be involved in this course, which was on designing a PC help desk.

"I didn't know exactly what I was going into