This morning “Tomorrow’s Professor” Newsletter discussed a survey of the current status of graduate engineering distance education at leading US engineering schools. This is an issue near and dear to my heart as I commute 192 miles each way for classes. Since Purdue does offer distance learning courses for graduate engineering classes, I had hoped to be able to take advantage of these offerings. However, I soon discovered that this was not the case. The engineering distance learning classes that are offered through Purdue are not available to other engineering graduate students unless we wish to pay a significant premium for taking these courses. At this point, this is a significant barrier to me.

I will be very curious to see the results of this survey. I am curious to see if all of the programs are online programs only or if they are combination of distance and traditional brick and mortar classrooms. I believe that there are multiple ways to engage in meaningful learning situations. I am also curious to see if the distance programs offer similar or different degrees to that of the homeschool. Will an online degree have equal weight to the traditional degree? Are these schools using the online programs to generate cash for their home institutions or is the money going directly back into building the online program?

I have found that on-line learning environments have encouraged me to be more reflective. I have time to really think about my responses and engage in conversations at optimal times for me. In addition, e-learning is much more responsive to my needs as an adult learner.

I was so disappointed to discover that the Purdue engineering distance program would not allow me to enroll in their classes without a significant cost for each course. I hope that eventually, they will change their minds and see the advantage of making the classes available to all Purdue engineering students. By making the online classes inclusive rather the exclusive, I believe it will strengthen all of our experience. Working graduate students will gain exposure to people engaged in an academic research environment and vice versa. This is beneficial to all. I also believe it will still be beneficial to the bottom line…

From:

Distance Education Offered by Leading U.S. Schools of Engineering. Addressing Change: A Survey (July 2010)

For a copy of the report go to www.croyassoc.net.