Online Education is
the future?
Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy
jeyak7@gmail.com
jeyv@utdallas.edu
The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Agenda
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What is online education?
Why did it become popular?
How is it done?
Technical Architecture
Future of online education
Potential for online education in India
What is online education?
Online education
• Education through Internet
• Anywhere, any time, any device connected to
internet
• Asynchronous learning
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Fixed # of weeks
All the work is graded & final grade is assigned
Student evaluation of faculty
Degree certificate
Why did it become
popular?
Snippets from history
• American higher educational system: Public,
private non-profit, and private for-profit
universities (companies), Regional accreditation
agencies, state agencies
• Question: What is #1 priority for private for-profit
university? Quality or Money?
• First online course ~20 years ago, likely by forprofit university
• First online degree program?
• MBA. Why?
Snippets from history …
• How reliable is online degree? Does it help to
get a job?
• Online colleges got accreditation
• Turning point (my opinion): Traditional
colleges started online degree programs
• Misleading ads: “Point…Click…Degree…”
• Reality: online courses require more work.
Who is a typical online student?
• Working adults who have difficulty attending
a traditional college
• Hard-working employees who want to get
promoted, but do not have a degree
• Military personnel
• Moms with young children at home
• Students from rural areas
Online education is NOT for every one!
Who is typical online faculty?
• has full-time job in the industry
• works as adjunct faculty
• Why?
– Additional income
– Passion
– More interesting than regular job!
• Lot of retired people too. Why?
– Flexible, travel & teaching can mix
How is it done?
Typical online course
• accessible only to students enrolled in that course
within university website (Online Learning System).
• Assignment due every week or every 2 weeks once
• Participation in Weekly discussion questions (DQs)
is mandatory.
• Courses run for only 5-8 weeks.
• Has 10 to 15 students
• Has students from multiple time-zones, sometimes
from other countries too.
Typical Grading Scale for a course
Item
Ground
course
5%
Online
course
25%
Quizzes/Attendance
10%
10%
Assignments
30%
30%
Proctored Exams
60%
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25%
-
10%
Class participation
Take-home
Exams/Projects
Team assignments
Compare with on-ground course
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Student-centered, NOT faculty-centered
Lectures optional
Students need to be self-motivated
Forced to participate
Did the student actually do the coursework?
Typical online student
does the following every week:
• logs into the course at least once in 2 days
• reads the book’s chapter(s) for the first 3 days
• makes 4 to 8 posts distributed over the next 4
days
• submits other assignments towards the end of
the week.
Typical online faculty
does the following every week:
• ensures that weekly material and DQs are setup before
the week starts
• grades the previous week’s assignments
• comments on DQ responses & offers closing thoughts
• responds to “cry for help” posts/emails in timely
manner
• makes phone calls if needed.
• responds to phone calls during office hours
• spends 5 to 15 hours every week for each course
Recent focus
• Continuous improvement in action …
• Utilize relevant web resources in courses
• Develop multimedia lectures to explain tough
concepts
• Increase academic rigor – test application of
concepts using weekly quizzes
• Improved communication tools
Major issues?
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Plagiarism in popular assignments
Google-generation has limited no patience 
Quality of Faculty?
Students’ preparedness
Time-discipline for both students and faculty
Micro-management from university
Low pay to faculty
Weekly DQs (Discussion Questions)
• Set difficulty of DQs at 110%
• Focus is on discussions, NOT on perfect initial
answers. Wrong answers are perfect discussion
starters! 
• Faculty should facilitate & shape the discussion
little bit, but should NOT kill it.
• Each post should add value to the course,
requirement to count towards participation.
DQ strategies
• Basic: 2 to 3 questions
• Expanded: 5 to 10 questions
• Personalized: assign specific question for each
student for posting initial response
• Empowered: designate each student as “DQ
lead” for one question
• More details in another presentation…
Team assignments
• Can it work online?
• Can it be better than on-ground?
• Potential for higher level of contribution from
each student
• More details in separate presentation.
Compare with
• Self-paced learning
• Correspondence education
Advantages?
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No commute to college
No need for classrooms
No conflict in course/work schedules
Multimedia lectures can be reused
Learning/teaching can happen any where, any
time
Disadvantages?
• Online learning not for every one
• Online learning not suitable for all courses
– Complex labs hard to do online
• Did the student really do the work?
Technical Architecture
Technical architecture
Online University
Internet
Security
gateway
OLS server
Online Learning System (OLS)
• Lots of software applications out there.
• Popular ones: Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, …
• In addition to courses, OLS provides network
space accessible to faculty, courses, …
• Tons of functionality to run the course
efficiently
Future?
Future of Online education in USA?
• High quality online lecture videos
– students can view them at any time
• More acceptance at workplaces
• Learning experience comparable to traditional
classroom
• Unlikely to replace traditional education
• Mixed mode courses becoming popular
• Lot of potential for augmenting ground courses
Future of Online education in India?
• Internet connection is quite stable!
• Correspondence education can be replaced with
online courses
• Proctored final exams will improve credibility
• We can augment classroom courses with online
materials for difficult concepts & tutorials.
Questions & Answers
Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy
jeyak7@gmail.com
jeyv@utdallas.edu