The State of Distance and Online Education
The popularity of online and distance education programs is attributed
in part to the rise of the Network Society, which was catalyzed by
advancement in information technology and the subsequent increase in the
use of the Internet throughout the world. According to a recent report
by the World Bank, more than 3.2 billion people around the world are
active users of the internet (World Bank, 2017). Online and distance
education is also an attractive pathway for working adults over the age
of 25, who tend to bring unique strengths and challenges to the online
learning ecology (Squires, 2018, p. 127). Another element to the
prevalence of online education is that it offers Institutions of higher
education an efficient and logistically-reasonable alternative to
“traditional” face-to-face program offerings (Allen & Seaman, 2013;
Steven & Elaine, 2008).
The emergence of online and distance education has created an andragogic
and cultural rift within the ecology of higher education, concerning the
quality and appropriateness of online curriculum (Bousbahi & Alrazgan,
2015). The rejection of online education as a legitimate environment for
teaching and learning is due to both generational and philosophical
differences (Allen & Seaman, 2013; Bousbahi & Alrazgan, 2015; Steven
& Elaine, 2008). Faculty members who are accustomed to teaching in the
traditional face-to-face settings are reluctant to engage in the
development and implantation of new learning management systems
(Bousbahi & Alrazgan, 2015). However, in a recent study, Allen and
Seaman (2015) found that while the majority of faculty (78%) question
the validity of online education, institutional leaders and
cabinet-level members discuss and have plans for including online
education in their strategic plans.
The recoiling stigma that is associated with online and distance
education may also be attributed to the low course persistence, lack of
student reediness for online courses, and high attrition rates as
compared to traditional face-to-face modality (Hung, Chou, Chen & Own,
2010). Recent studies have shown that the dropout rates for students
enrolled in online courses is 10-20% higher than those of traditional
face-to-face programs (Allen & Seaman, 2013; Allen & Seaman, 2017;
Hung et al., 2010; Online Learning Consortium, 2018). Another stigma
that has been linked to online education is the real and perceived
vulnerability of this modality to acts of plagiarism and other forms of
violations to academic integrities (MacLennan, 2018; McAllister &
Watkins, 2012).
However, recent studies have shown that plagiarism can be minimized by
fostering self-regulated learning skills and reimagining the structures
of course and program designs (McAllister & Watkins, 2012).
Additionally, Tools like Safe Assign and Turnitin have shown to enhance
the student’s ability to write academically and at the same time honor
the institutional codes of ethics. For example, Halgamuge (2017) has
found that the use of Turnitin has helped students improve their written
communication skills and reduce their similarity indexes between the
first and subsequent drafts. In a similar study, Tolman (2017) have
examined the link between online courses and academic dishonesty and
showed that it is a fallacy. He argued that the nature of online courses
is less conducive to academic dishonesty than those in the face-to-face
environments (p. 583).