Your Say: Online courses leave some doubting

Online courses are becoming more common. Traditional universities offer them and digital colleges depend on them. Stanford University offered an online course last fall that prompted 350,000 to sign up.

I would like to know what checks are in place to ensure that someone else isn't doing the work. There is already a fair amount of cheating going on in the classroom. There is probably a lot more with online education.

Jerald Truesdell

Much of the public has the idea that an online degree is much easier to complete. It's not. Accredited schools are not diploma mills. And teaching an online class requires at least double the preparation. A colleague of mine who is a professor once said online classes are "for students who don't want to learn, from teachers who don't want to teach." I think he has since changed his mind. Online classes allow students to do the work on their own schedule.The drop-out rate is generally

much higher for online students because many are shocked when they find that they actually must work.

Daniel Wirkus

I am enrolled in my last semester at Western Governors University. This was my only option to obtain my degree without going into debt. It has taken me a bit longer than I would have liked, but by using this route I will graduate debt free. I interact with classmates and professors and I have strict deadlines and tests. I take my exams online while my professors watch and can see everything via webcam. It's great to see an alternative to college that is challenging and affordable.

Mitchell Baker

You get absolutely no face-to-face interaction or hands on learning with online classes. They are setting up every student for failure at a very high cost.

Bael E. Here