Baker's Guide to Christian Online Learning

When evaluating student success in courses, many researchers have relied upon self-reported study times, projected end grades, and a student's grade point average as indicators of a course design's overall success. Studies have found that these criteria may not be the best method for determining how students will perform in a class because students may not be completely honest on the self-evaluation forms. This same method has also been used to evaluate the success of online courses. According to the research of Hilde Patron and Salvador Lopez in their article Student Effort, Consistency, and Online Performance; Patron and Lopez use different research variables such as time logged online to determine the effort and student performance.

With the popularity of for profit online universities, many human resource staffers have viewed this online degree as a liability for the potential job candidate. Online education, particularly in the post-secondary arena, offers access to the for profit schools as well as the established traditional universities. This has caused human resource staff and other employers to rethink how they view the online degree. According to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, employers see the expanding world of online education as beneficial for their companies and employees.

In a recent study conducted in the state of Washington, researchers evaluated the online education courses and the completion rates for Washington's community colleges. The push for community colleges to offer some form of online degree programs and courses has improved enrollment rates; however, researchers also noticed a more alarming trend among those taking online courses. According to an article in Inside Higher Ed, community college students enrolled in online courses had a significantly higher rate of failing courses, leaving the degree program, or not returning the next semester.

In the past six months, several states from California to Utah have debated and passed legislation concerning the future of online education. In May 2011, Tennessee joined the ranks of states who have implemented a new online school system that would allow students from any school district in the state to attend this virtual school. According to an article in The Knoxville News Sentinel, Tennessee has contracted the for profit company K12 to set up and run the new online school.

With more textbooks offering an e-version of the book, college students had to create separate user names and passwords to access the information. This may no longer be necessary. In a recent announcement, the online learning platform giant Blackboard has partnered with several college textbook publishers. This collaboration will allow Blackboard to offer a wider range of services for its learning management system. According to an article in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Blackboard's new partnership allows textbook companies to offer their e-textbooks through Blackboard.