June 17, 2008
Who Needs a Professor When There's a Tutor Available?
An unusual new commercial service offers low-cost online courses and connects students to accredited colleges who will accept the courses for credit. The only thing missing: professors.
The service, called StraighterLine, is run by SmartThinking, a company that operates an online tutoring service used by about 300 colleges and universities. The online courses offered by StraighterLine are self-guided, and if students run into trouble they can summon a tutor from SmartThiking and talk with them via instant messaging. Students turn in their assignments or papers to tutors for grading as well.
“We’re using our tutoring service as the instructional component,” says Burck Smith, CEO of SmartThinking. “Students move through the course, and when they have a problem they click a button and they’re talking with a tutor.”
The courses cost $399 each, which includes 10 hours of time with a tutor. If students need more one-on-one help, they can pay extra for more tutoring.
The courses themselves were developed by McGraw-Hill, and StraighterLine uses Blackboard’s course-management service. So this virtual college is essentially cobbled together from various off-the-shelf learning services.
So far three colleges have agreed to grant credit for the StraighterLine courses — Fort Hays State University, Jones International University, and Potomac College.
The colleges see the partnership as a way to attract new students. “One of the things we hope to do is convert those students to Jones students,” says D. Terry Rawls, a vice chancellor at Jones International. “My expectation is that in reality students will take one maybe two courses with StraighterLine and then the students will take the rest of their courses with us.”
Richard Garrett, a senior analyst for Eduventures, sees the service as part of a broader trend of colleges granting credit for unconventional college experience, provided that the students can pass a test or otherwise demonstrate competency. And that raises the question, he says, “what is the core business of the academy versus what can be outsourced?”—Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Tuesday June 17, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Obviously, according to the article everything can be outsourced except the issuance of the diploma. Here it is. We’ve finally arrived. We don’t educate anymore. We are officially a credentialing service.
— jason Jun 17, 05:42 PM #
Can can’t agree more Jason. The Academy has truly lost its way, and now professors, like myself, are simply customer service agents. Poor students; they don’t know what they’ve lost.
— Chris K Jun 17, 07:38 PM #
As “education” continues to give way to “job training” we can expect to see more of this as well as relaxed standards in general. After all, when one only needs a narrow and shallow knowledge to perform a profitable function any old thing will do to give them an “education.” If something does not change in the degree of influence corporations have in deciding educational curricula we may indeed see a more rapid and sure decline of citizen participation as the base voting population will not only be ignorant but see no need to be anything but so. Already it is hard to get some of the students to understand that history and critical thinking about issues of any kind matters. After all, what does one need to understand about American racial history, for example, if one is “only going to be an accountant”?
— Damon Jun 18, 09:20 AM #
It hasn’t been long in coming. At my new institution, I’m finding a number of course packs being used solely for online courses. Where is the teaching?
— George Jun 18, 09:24 AM #
How many of you have taught or taken an online class? Some of the most engaging and stimulating “classroom” discussions in which I’ve participated have occurred in the online environment. Because each online student is required to “speak” in class (by thinking critically about the discussion questions, writing thoughtfully, and then reading and responding to others’ written thoughts), no student can hide in class behind more outspoken colleagues. Every “voice” is heard, and I’ve been surprised at the depth and profundity of many “quiet in the traditional classroom” students’ work.
— Katherine Jun 18, 10:28 AM #
One could look at this trend as a way to get the increasingly unprepared high school student to take responsibility (paying themselves instead of tax dollars) for attaining the education needed to enter a ‘real’ college. That way, institutions can maintain a high entrance standard and the online courses can be blamed if the student is ill prepared to enter the university. Some education is better than none and if ‘job training’ is all the student seeks, then so be it. We can then focus on advancing the students education rather than being the ‘tutors’.
— Jeff Jun 18, 10:31 AM #
We collectively agreed to become a credentialing service. We have no educational mission beyond some bon-pedant patter. We are unable to agree upon what constitutes a college education (if you have any doubts, attend a meeting in which faculty discuss or rather argue ad infinitum and with unyielding partisanship and self-interest which courses should be required. Teaching is not valued, plain and simple. There is no canon: nothing that we agree that students must know in order to declare themselves educated. The quality of mind of faculty is no longer measured; true peer review and tenure is now done by academic press editorial staffs. Teaching evaluations are consumer ratings. The jig is up.
— dewey ide Jun 18, 10:43 AM #
Katherine does have a point; I’ve taken grad courses in a classroom that required heavy participation online, and the wealth of that participation was surprising. That said, I see a major flaw being the university’s own self-estimation. Less than a generation after engineers, businessmen and -women, restaurant managers, and computer scientists were forced to get degrees before entering the job market and learning from masters in the field we have found universities (and students) caught in the throes of an identity crisis. After those and other industries bought the “four-year degrees are for everyone” spiel, what could the liberal arts colleges actually offer a highly skilled tradesperson? And, after academics with “higher things to do” pulled the term “trade” through the dirt, what option was left for intelligent people to earn credentials or skills better learned in apprenticeships or through industry-specific training? I agree with Damon that accountants should have an idea of America’s history, but why is dispensing that knowledge now the job of a four-year degree instead of a good high school or a decent library?
— Calvin Jun 18, 10:59 AM #
Ah — degrees without all that troublesome knowledge!
— Sue Jun 18, 12:21 PM #
Mmmm…I love the smell of faculty fear in the morning.
Question — Could any of this be happening because too many students have taken classes from faculty who DON’T teach? Some students aren’t happy to pay the big bucks to learn from their peers (i.e. class participation).
— WildLib Jun 18, 01:59 PM #
This will not be the answer for all, or replace professor led courses. But as our graduation rates continue to be embrassing and we fall behind our international peers, I applaud those who are offering rational alternatives such as this.
I am always amused by the visceral reaction of some in the academic community to new education methods. I would hope that the academic community would drive the changes to improve our system. Unfortunately, some of them are more interested in keeping control of the system, rather than improving it.
— Edward P Meehan Jun 19, 02:48 PM #
My concern isn’t that these courses are online, it’s the particular pedagogy at work behind them. The Composition course offered here represents some of the worst I can imagine in writing pedagogy.
— Alex Reid Jun 22, 07:20 AM #
Too many classes today simply require attendance, not true participation. Of course, this requires teaching leadership. But if a professor’s concern is publishing (for which they are rewarded with tenure, grants, raises, sabaticals, etc.) and not the preparations necessary for real interactive instructing (time consuming with little financial payoffs), then who can blame the students? Once again, it becomes an example of “do as I say, not as I do”. Those interested in LEARNING will seek out such experiences wherever they are. Those merely interested in EDUCATION (i.e., the label we give our formal, state supported system) will choose this route and seek the shortest path to achieve their goals. It’s human nature.
— Leigh Smith Jun 22, 03:29 PM #
as an argument, please have a look at my “universitysite”:
PublicUniversityOnline.com
I don´t think online lectures can replace real lectures, they are merly a supplement. We are working to make an “interuniversitarian” lecture culture, this as a supplemant to traditional education, to give e.g. a international perspective on various subjects.
Jakob Sandvad – founder of PUO
— jakob sandvad Jul 12, 07:39 AM #