Merits, drawbacks of
online learning debated
SL*
WASHINGTON (AP) - Farzad
% Naeim, an earthquake engineer from
li Los Angeles who decided to go to
> law school, didn’t have time for cam
pus meetings and classroom lectures.
So when Kaplan’s Concord Law
School was launched last fall, Naeim
enrolled to get his education over the
Internet.
“I figure if I go to a standard
school four nights a week, that elimi
nates the chance for me to see my
kids grow up,” said Naeim, 44. “I get
my assignments off the computer,
and I can study after the kids go to
bed.”
Hundreds of universities are
launching courses or degree pro
grams online. But a pair of reports
being released Wednesday question
whether a seat in front of a computer
is as good as a seat in a college class
room.
The reports questions whether the
programs’ effectiveness is evaluated
properly, whether they cost too much
and if they are unfair to certain stu
dents.
The College Board warns in its
report that Internet courses could
hinder the progress of poor and
minority students who arrive at col
lege with less exposure to computers
than white or more affluent students.
“There’s this rush to get online
and go virtual ... Colleges, policy
makers and (Internet) providers who
are driving this market need to think
about broad access,” Larry F.
Gladieux, a senior College Board
researcher, said.
A second report, by the Institute
for Higher Education Policy, says
colleges still lack enough knowledge
about Internet-based education to
justify its rapid growth.
For example, studies haven’t
explained a higher dropout rate for
Internet-based learners - 32 percent
compared with 4 percent for class
room students in one study - or
looked at whether students do better
from Internet instruction alone or
from a mix of Internet and classroom
learning.
“Many of the studies suggest the
66
Many studies suggest the
grades of distance learners are
higher or comparable”
Jamie Merisotis
president of Institute for Higher Education Policy
grades of distance learners are higher
or comparable,” said Jamie
Merisotis, president of the institute
that did the study for two teachers’
unions.
“We don’t know whether the
poorer performers are dropping out
at a higher rate,” she said.
Right now, 26,000 courses online
teach roughly 750,000 students. They
include the online law school and
courses at Stanford University, the
University of California in Los
Angeles, and Duke University.
The most visible advance, sup
porters said, is the first-time accredi
tation of a wholly online school.
Students at Jones International
University, operated out of Denver,
now have such privileges as transfer
ring credits and earning employer
tuition reimbursements.
“I wondered if I was going to get
a quality education,” said Joan
Crittenden, a Navy safety official
from Waldorf, Md., who received her
master’s degree in business commu
nications from Jones in December. “I
actually think I did get a better educa
tion. More of the resources were at
my fingertips.”
Distance learning started with
classes taken by mail or by watching
teachers’ lectures on videos or cable
television.
But unlike correspondence
school or video-lecture predecessors,
Internet-based distance learning has
a place on campus, too.
Deborah Everhart, a medieval
studies professor at Georgetown
University, holds traditional and
online classes and said professors
who have mastered e-mail now use
Web pages to post course readings,
homework and bulletin boards where
students can leave messages.
“There are students I might not
ordinarily hear from in class,”
Everhart said. “But in a chat room,
they feel freer to state their opinions
and ask their questions.”
Matthew Pittinsky is a co-founder
of Washington-based Blackboard
Inc., which creates and maintains
Internet sites for college courses.
“There’s no question, there is a mar
ket,” Pittinsky said.
Colleges’ reliance on technology
marketed by Blackboard, Real
Education of Denver and Convene in
San Francisco has led to criticism
that the ventures are more about
higher profits than higher learning.
College officials worried over
enrollment increases and budget cuts
could be easily seduced by pitches
that virtual learning cuts the costs of
“bricks and mortar” learning,
College Board’s Gladieux said.
But they need to ensure equal
access, he said, noting that a techno
logical divide still exists. For exam
ple, computers are in 75 percent of
households with incomes over
$75,000, but just 20 percent of
households making less than $ 15,000
have computers or daily access.
Andrew Rosen of Kaplan notes
that a law degree from Kaplan’s
Concord Law School costs up to
$21,000, including the cost of a com
puter, rather than $80,000 for a more
traditional law school.
“Online education has the poten
tial to close a lot of the gaps that exist
right now,” Rosen said.
Paper sues Pennsylvania
over alcohol publicity law
■ The Pitt News says not
allowing a college paper to
publicize events using
alcohol is censorship.
The Pitt News
University of Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH, Penn. (U-Wire) -
Believing it could be fined for print
ing a restaurant review mentioning
the availability of alcohol, the
University of Pittsburgh student
newspaper, The Pitt News, on
Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit
against the commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
The suit charges that a state law,
known as Act 199, violates First
Amendment freedom of the press
because it prohibits alcohol advertis
ing in college media.
‘This case is about who decides
what students publish and say,” said
Witold “Vic” Walczak, director of the
Pittsburgh American Civil Liberties
Union. “Politicians in Harrisburg
have no business making those kinds
of decisions.”
The lawsuit asks the court to
declare Act 199 unconstitutional and
to repeal it.
Judge William Standish declined
to immediately issue an emergency
temporary injunction, which would
keep the state from enforcing the law
until the matter has been resolved in
court.
Standish tentatively scheduled a
hearing for the week of April 19 to
hear arguments and decide whether to
issue a preliminary injunction at that
time.
The American Civil Liberties
Union student club at Pitt has joined
The Pitt News as a plaintiff. The Pitt
Legal Income Sharing Foundation is
mentioned in the suit but is not a
plaintiff.
Under Act 199, The.Pitt News
cannot accept any advertisements
that promote alcohol. In the past year,
the newspaper has lost approximately
$20,000 because of Act 199 limita
tions.
The ACLU Club and PLISF can
not advertise that alcohol will be
served at their events. They say Act
199 violates their right to freedom of
speech.
Walczak said that the law is
intended to curb underage drinking,
which he said is a major problem. A
better method, he said, is to enforce
drinking laws and to educate young
people about the effects of alcohol
abuse.
“Usurping editorial control” and
“censoring students” are not the ways
to tackle the problem, Walczak said.
Walczak and The Pitt News editor
in chief, Hal Turner, said they knew of
no other states that had laws similar to
Act 199.
Describing the law as “uncon
scionable,” Turner said, “We’re hop
ing that the constitutionality of this
[law] is going to be so obvious in the
eyes of the judge that this will be
overturned.”
Walczak said other schools in
Pennsylvania had expressed interest
in the lawsuit.
He declined to identify those
schools and said he did not think they
would join the suit.
He added that several non-univer
sity publications, such as In
Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Post
Gazette, are allowed to advertise
alcohol because they are not run by or
specifically targeted toward students.
But, Walczak said, students have
ready access to those publications,
subverting Act 199’s goal.
And according to the lawsuit,
75.1 percent of Pitt’s student body is
over die age of 21.
Ultimately, he said, the state must
prove that Act 199 does reduce under
age drinking.
“What happens when you put on
the Penguins, die Steelers, the Pirates
at night?” Walczak said. “Do you ever
see an alcohol ad?”
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^ April 5-8,1999 * ►Vee,
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and University Health Center
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