The Griffon News

As the popularity of online courses and degree programs increase and new technology becomes more readily available, Missouri Western hopes meet the demand by expanding its current online programs.

In the fall semester of 2006 at Missouri Western, there were 266 students enrolled in the distance education programs, which includes online courses as well as video courses.

The distance education programs consist of 13 separate courses, and Martin Johnson, dean of liberal arts and sciences says that number has increased drastically over the last five years.

“In terms of what we’re planning for the future, I would like to see a situation where a student could finish a majority of their general education courses online, over a two year period of time,” Johnson said.

The appeal of online courses is the flexibility and convenience they offer, says Christopher Shove, executive director and dean of Western Institute.

“We know there are students out there interested in the classes. We have a lot of students who are working, or have a family to take care of and the online classes give them that flexibility,” Shove said. “You can basically do [online coursework] at two in the morning, or Saturday afternoon, or whenever.”

Another advantage to online courses is the amount of interaction between students and teachers they demand.

“In a face to face class, there are people who will be very vocal and do a lot, and people who will sit in a corner and observe,” Johnson said,.“In an online format, people can’t sit in the corner and observe. They have to be actively engaged in the conversations.”

While the online format may challenge students to be more vocal and have more interaction with one another, online classes are not for students who prefer face to face interaction.

“Another disadvantage is that some people simply like to interact with other people,” said Johnson.

However, since there are no class meeting times or in-class work to be assigned, online courses often demand more discipline.

“If you aren’t disciplined, you don’t get online like you should, you don’t stay up, you get behind, and you shrug what you’re doing. If you aren’t well disciplined you don’t do well,” Johnson said.

The Western Institute is in charge of trying to meet the demand of the region for online courses, with the website for online courses reaching several hundred hits a month.

“When I came here with the Western Institute because of my experience, I knew there was a great service that could be given to students by offering online classes,” Shove said. “We would like to offer a whole lot more, because the demand is so high.”

Shove says that last year, the Western Institute doubled the enrollments and revenues from online classes with 1,000 students enrolled in 60 courses.

Nationwide, enrollment of online college courses has increased by 700 percent, according to a recent study by the University of Continuing Education Association in June 2006. The study also states that in 2004, 2.3 million students took at least one course online.

In order to better serve the educational needs of the area, input from students is important to developing online programs.

“One thing we all would appreciate is student input,” Shove said. “They’re the ones we’re trying to serve, they’re the silent majority in this discussion. We get a lot of interest in online classes, but there is no group representing the students.”

While the advantages of taking online classes are clear for students, faculty and administration also benefit from the online environment.

“Online classes actually do save the university a lot of money,” Shove said. “If you have more online enrollment, you don’t have build more buildings, you don’t have to build more classrooms, buy more furniture. The students are absorbing some of the costs themselves.”

“We have a lot of professors who want to teach online, and we have developed training programs for the professors, so they can be better teachers online,” Shove said.

The Western Institute and Missouri Western have been in talks to take their online education programs further in the future. For now, Western has created its first online program in Health Information Technology which is now available.

“I think we could dramatically improve the customer service and enrollments by offering a lot more online courses and enrollment programs,” Shove said.

“The way I like to think of online classes is, you should be able to take the class if you’re in another country,” Shove said of plans to make online courses more convenient for students, especially courses with lab training which requires students to come to campus to complete certain aspects of the class.

“Enrollment has doubled, and the discussion now is to change the delivery of the online environments,” Shove said, “We’ve enjoyed developing the online environment and we hope to do more in the future.”