Quality
Students taking “virtual" courses are doing “real” work to get their degrees, and educators preparing and teaching those courses spend “real” time in doing so. That is, students meet a comparable level of academic learning outcomes and are evaluated through programs constructed according to standard university-level criteria. Though it should not be assumed, virtual universities may be accredited in the same way as traditional universities and operate according to a similar set of academic standards.
However, questions remain about accreditation and the quality of assessment. Accreditation is required to assure students that the online institute has certified online instructors who have the expertise and educational qualifications to design and carry out the curriculum. Assessment standards need to be particularly closely monitored in virtual universities. For example, respondents in studies of opinions about online degrees will rate an online degree from Stanford the same as an on-campus degree, because the name of the granting institution is recognized.
Read more about this topic: Virtual University
Famous quotes containing the word quality:
“Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the otherest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are few things more disturbing than to find, in somebody we detest, a moral quality which seems to us demonstrably superior to anything we ourselves possess. It augurs not merely an unfairness on the part of creation, but a lack of artistic judgement.... Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.”
—Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912–1981)
“While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)