A friend of mine started an online degree at Phoenix and as time went by got more and more disillusioned by the standard of teaching, marking, materials provided and university regulations, not to mention other students not pulling their weight - which mattered since almost all the assignments were group work.
Yes, I'd heard about the group work thing; it's how they skimp on paying professors, most of which are part-time. Because of course college students work *really* hard when nobody in authority is watching. :rolleyes:
According to my textbook, this sort of thing is called "social loafing" -- there will always be people who want to coast on other people's labor. Which, in college courses, is fair to nobody. The good students have to work harder, and the loafers aren't actually learning much of anything. And since employers and other colleges can't tell which is which, they tend to assume nobody learned anything. A degree from UofP might be better than nothing, but it might not.
Not all online schools are like that, though. I haven't had any group projects, really -- there's a discussion that you need to participate in every week; post your answer to the question and then respond to two other students' posts. But there was no problem getting enough people to participate in that. One of my professors would monitor it, too, and throw in questions like "why do you think that? can you explain your reasoning? but have you thought about ___?" and give hints if we weren't getting something
My other professor kinda sucks but I guess thems the breaks.
I'm still getting the work done okay, though.
PJ
