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[chronicle_moderator]

What's your experience with online degrees? If you received one, has it been a handicap? If you hire people, do you view online degrees skeptically? The results of several surveys of people who evaluate potential employees and make hiring decisions indicate a bias against online degrees, even as more and more colleges are offering programs online. What, if anything, should be done about that attitude? Is it more surprising or more predictable?
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[zharkov]

After reading the article, I think the categories are too broad.....

The article compared a "traditional bachelor's degree" to an "online bachelor's degree."  A much better basis of comparison would be "bachelor's degree obtained in an evening continuing ed program" vs. "online bachelor's."  Most people getting an online degree are not people who choose online vs. a full time BA, but those who are choosing between going to evening classes or an online program.

So, if one asked employers to rank "full time traditional bachelor's" and "a bachelor's obtained via evening study," I'd expect they'd choose the full time traditional bachelor's.  (Unless, of course, the hiring manager got his or her degree in the evening, and knew that value of getting a degree that way.)

I would also add that most employers would choose a person with a bachelor's obtained traditionally, evenings, or online over a person with no bachelor's degree.  (For a job where the bachelor's was preferred.)

[mountain_ivy]

My school doesn't much care where degrees come from for administrators: online, out-of-line, unaccredited.  All it wants is to be able to say that we have X number of doctoral degrees.

Right now, one of our deans has a doctorate from an online institution not accredited by an accrediting agency approved by dept.of educ.

Zarkhov:  We could supplement our income by starting our own accreditation agency.

[benders]

Before beginning my masters degree online I visited my local community colleges where I hope to start my academic career.  I spoke to representatives in human resources extensively about this exact topic.  I wanted to get a feel of how my online degree would be received at these institutions when applying for a faculty position.  I received positive feedback from them and they even went as far as to tell me that many faculty members are working on terminal degrees from the same institution I am earning my masters at.

I am hoping, with the increasing rate of this type of avenue of study, that online degrees will be accepted as scholarly.  With all this said, I feel that if you are truly an excellent candidate for a position, the avenue of learning will not be a set back.

[twofish]

One problem with those surveys is that they ask the wrong question.  It really doesn't matter if 90% of the employers hate online degrees , if the place that you want to work at loves them.  Also, it *really* doesn't matter if the choice isn't between a brick-and-mortar degree and online degree but rather between an online degree and no degree.

The other problem with these surveys is that they don't often capture the complexity of the hiring process.  One reason that HR people tend to look favorably toward online degrees is that HR is one area that people seem to have a lot of online degrees.  Also in a lot of cases, the first cut involves "get rid of anyone who doesn't have degree X" so any degree is useful to get past the first cut.

Also community colleges are very active in developing online programs, and so naturally they can't consider online degrees a handicap without undermining themselves.

One problem that I do see with degrees in general is that they focus on training rather than education, but that isn't a criticism just of online degrees.

[shillate]

The fact is we do not really know how those graduating from online programs stack up against those graduating from traditional programs because we have no assessment information that compares these two groups. This is really part of a larger problem--there are no national tests, comparisons, or assessments that address this issue at all, or at least none that I am aware of.

[busyslinky]

The other difficulty with these comparisons are that a significant aspect of the 'output' of on-line degrees is dependent on the 'input'.  What are the requirements necessary to get into an on-line degree programs, are they as rigorous as the traditional programs?  I think this is one of the issues that organizations who hire are worried about.  This issue also gets into that Shillate mentions.  Accreditation is meant to get to address this issue somewhat.

[zharkov]

The other difficulty with these comparisons are that a significant aspect of the 'output' of on-line degrees is dependent on the 'input'.  What are the requirements necessary to get into an on-line degree programs, are they as rigorous as the traditional programs?  I think this is one of the issues that organizations who hire are worried about.  This issue also gets into that Shillate mentions.  Accreditation is meant to get to address this issue somewhat.

The more or less standardized testing that the Spellings Report discussed will include two measures.  The first is just the raw outcome.  How do Harvard grads compare to Phoenix?  The second is value added.  The incoming students to a selective school will, on average, have much higher SAT's than an open admissions school.  Value added is a way to measure how much a school has added to its graduates' critical thinking ability (say).

[busyslinky]

The value added transformation perspective is important for those who start out at a disadvantage.  But, typically those who hire are concerned about the output.  They are more likely to get good outputs when the inputs are good.  I am not sure how you can really study the effectiveness of on-line programs and their quality just because of the difficulty associated with assessments of inputs and outputs in general.  The traditional schools and degrees are safer since organizations have been dealing them them for generations.  How many generations are needed for the on-line programs before they are accepted?  I think it really comes down to which schools the best students (inputs) are flocking. When this starts to shift, then you will see greater acceptance.

[dstuhlman]

I teach on line courses in two schools that are American Library Association accredited to teach future librarians.  These universities also have huge campuses with face-to-face classes.  The courses are every bit as hard as face-to-face classes.  The only thing easier is that you don't need to get into your car and drive to campus.  In some aspects the courses are harder because students need to be more committed to directing their own learning.  Some students, expecting on-line courses to be easy, do not make the mark.  They are asked to leave the program.  Some students show a joy of learning and some just want to get the job done.

However, I do not feel comfortable writing a letter of recommendation.  The names of students are words on the computer screen.  I don't always make a connection between the students' words and the person.  If I wrote a recommendation I would be concerned about drawing an incorrect conclusion based on too little information.

[gesualdo]

... I do not feel comfortable writing a letter of recommendation.  The names of students are words on the computer screen.  I don't always make a connection between the students' words and the person.  If I wrote a recommendation I would be concerned about drawing an incorrect conclusion based on too little information.

You can't tell from your students' work and from their class participation whether they are worthy of a recommendation?  I should think that would tell you everything you needed to know about their ability to do the work, work in groups, discuss coherently, etc.  I earned an online library degree from a large traditional university and my advisor had no such qualms.  Because of the nature of online discussions vs. in-class discussions, class participation is much easier for the students and much easier to gauge for the instructors.  The coursework is much the same and plenty of group work is included.

In the end, I presented myself as having earned a master's degree.  I did not feel the need to make the online distinction because I had done all the same work as a more traditional student, including hanging out at the (online) coffee shop and engaging in meaningful (and not-so-meaningful) discussion with my peers.  And although I never mentioned the online nature of my degree in my resume, it did sometimes come up in my cover letters and nearly always in my interviews.  Being able to navigate the online world is a necessity and my responses to questions demonstrated that my "online" degree was an asset, not a liability.

[beenthere]

I've taught at one of the on-line universities.  I found that the quality of the courses was lower, there is a tendency to inflate grades, and the lack of admission requirements created a student body that was widely varied in basic communication and math skills.  I think that, in general, a degree from an on-line program that is housed at a good-quality bricks-and-mortar university has a good reputation.  The purely on-line universities are merely money-making machines and don't care much for the quality.  Even assessment teams from accreditation agencies willingly have the wool pulled over their eyes.  Not much in-depth review is done, and the team spends most of its time talking with the CEO.

[johnbear]

Current attitudes reflect a really dramatic change in employer attitudes to distance or online degrees. For years, the definitive study was one done by Sosdian and Sharp (National Institute of Education, 1978), which found that 100% (81 out of 81) corporate HR people would accept regionally accredited distance degrees as often as residential ones . . . and a significant subset said they actually preferred them, since they demonstrated the student's ability to work independently, unsupervised, etc. (The research was based entirely on degrees from the schools now known as Excelsior, Charter Oak, and Thomas Edison.)

Sadly, the large and growing number of bad and fake schools has muddied the waters for all. The title of the article I wrote for University Business Magazine seven years ago is even more true today, only the numbers are larger: "Diploma Mills: the $200 million a year competitor you didn't know you  had."

John Bear
Author, "Bears Guide to Earning Degrees by
   Distance Learning" (editions 1 - 15).

[mountain_ivy]

busyslinky and shillate mentioned accreditation.  There are basically two types of accreditation agencies:  those approved by the US Dept. of Ed (such as Middle States) and those that are not.  Schools not accredited by an agency approved by DOE are not eligible for any federal funds, including student loans/grants.  

What generally seems to happen (with both bricks and mortar, and DL) is that a speciality school (naturopathic basketry) will open.  It will then receive "accreditation" from the "National Association of Naturopathetic Basketeers" which is not approved by DOE.  However, the school can claim "accreditation."  We have a DEAN with a Ph.D from an online college (no lie!!) that falls into this category.

While I do have some skepticism about online degrees, I think that an institution accredited by a DOE approved agency has more credibility than one accredited by an unaccredited accreditation agency. (repetition deliberate)

[dspurlockjr]

The fact is we do not really know how those graduating from online programs stack up against those graduating from traditional programs because we have no assessment information that compares these two groups. This is really part of a larger problem--there are no national tests, comparisons, or assessments that address this issue at all, or at least none that I am aware of.

I think one issue here is that everyone is lumping traditional schools together.  There is lots of variability in on-the-ground education too.  I am not sure comparing online to traditional education is fair in the first place - this sort of assumes that all traditional schools are of a certain quality and all online schools are of a certain quality.  What do we really even know about the outputs of traditional schools, compared with one another even?