IT leaders give online universities high marks

Computerworld - Harcourt General Inc.'s newly accredited online university has prompted questions from analysts about whether a Web-based school can capture the most critical element of a physical classroom - lively debate among students. But some information technology professionals argued that there is little difference between getting a degree on campus or over the Web.
IT leaders applauded the Massachusetts Board of Education's decision last week to accredit Harcourt Higher Education (HHE), a division of Chestnut Hill, Mass.-based publisher Harcourt General, saying the trend toward online education offers students a more convenient means of obtaining degrees.
"The more sources [of education] we have, the better," said Robert Baker, a systems consultant at Emergent Information Technologies Inc. in Newport Beach, Calif.
Harcourt isn't the only college offering online degrees. Accredited last year, Jones International University (JIU) - a division of JonesKnowledge.com Inc., an online learning products and software company in Englewood, Colo. - offers several online degrees, including an MBA for about $10,000. Several traditional colleges, including the University of Chicago and Stanford University, have moved into the online world as well.
Baker said taking online courses in global communications at JIU helped him integrate learning into his hectic work schedule, which includes frequent travel.
Baker said he has wasted thousands of dollars on courses that he had to drop because of sudden work-related travel.
"I can't turn down an assignment because I'm taking a course at UCLA," he said.
Gerry Giesler, a senior vice president at The Chubb Corp., an insurance firm in Warren, N.J., said a degree from an online school would neither help nor hurt an applicant. Putting too much emphasis on any degree - online or not - means you might not get the best person for the job, said Giesler, whose responsibilities include IT professional development.
But some observers question whether a university can offer coursework and tests online and ensure that students are actually doing the work themselves.
Cheating Happens
HHE President Robert Antonucci said the school has done as much as it can to enforce security measures, but he acknowledged that online schools can't do much to prevent cheating.
"If someone wants to beat the system, they probably can," he said.
However, Antonucci said, HHE attracts mostly older adults who take classes because they want to learn, so it's unlikely they would cheat.
One disadvantage of online degree programs is that they have yet to establish brand names or allow the same level of networking among students and professors as brick-and-mortar schools, said Mike Brennan, ananalyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.
But Baker dismissed concerns that online coursework is isolating, saying that online discussion boards enabled him to get to know fellow students as well as an instructor who taught from Helsinki, Finland.