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By Karen Rivedal
Higher education reporter
Wisconsin State Journal
This article was originally published in the Wisconsin State Journal
Web-savvy students are turning to the Wisconsin Technical College System more frequently, as enrollment in online courses reached record levels this semester.
Since the program started in fall 2001, the number of students taking Web-based courses has increased to about 8,075, officials said.
The fall enrollment was an 11 percent increase from the 7,260 students in the spring who took one or more courses via the Internet, roughly double the 5 percent growth in total enrollment in the System during that period.
"By anyone's definition, (online education) has been wildly popular," System President Richard Carpenter said.
"We take it as another sign that we are meeting the needs of Wisconsin students, especially those who are juggling work and family responsibilities," said Brent Nelson, director of eTech College of Wisconsin, a System-wide consortium that offers online courses.
Based on surveys, the typical student taking online
courses in the tech system is white, female, under 35 and working at
least 30 hours a week, Carpenter said. Students also are likely to be
enrolled in an associate degree program and most likely accessing an
online course from their home computer.
"Often it's their very first course in higher education,"
Carpenter said, noting that many people add campus-based classes after
a few semesters. "You could theorize that many adult students are
trying their hand at higher education through the online courses."
In an unexpected finding, the students taking online
courses typically lived within 20 minutes of their nearest technical
college. System officials thought students from more far-flung areas
would take the courses, and that's how online learning often has been
touted - as a way to provide "anytime-anywhere education."
But officials aren't quibbling about the logistical details.
"It's obviously meeting a need," Carpenter said.
Students interested in online courses can take classes, except for labs, that they need for certain health-related programs, such as for nursing and radiology technicians. Almost all general education classes - which can be transferred to meet a full year of basic requirements at the state's public universities - are available on the Web, and many accounting classes also are online, with a full program in cyber-security to be online next year.
System officials would like to offer additional online courses more quickly, but steep upfront costs in both time and money slow the process, Carpenter said. The production cost for a single online course is about $4,000 per credit, he said, so putting an entire program online gets expensive.
"There is a tremendous amount of energy and time
and dollars that goes into it," Carpenter said. "It is not
really cheaper. It is not a way to cut corners."
But it's worth the cost, Carpenter maintained.
"We're reaching over 8,000 students that we probably wouldn't be reaching otherwise," he said. "It does have a payback."
Until six months ago, the cost of taking an online course was the same as a classroom-based course. Now students in the online courses pay an extra $10, Carpenter said, to help the System recoup some of the extra costs of creating the programs.
Another potential problem with getting an education exclusively on a computer screen is more cultural. Online students clearly miss out on the college campus experience.
But Carpenter said the online classroom experience does not have to be a sterile affair. In fact, he said that e-mail and chat rooms set up for classes produced more interaction between students and teachers.
"Online, there are no shy people," Carpenter said. "Everybody can ask anything."
Posted December 15, 2003