Editorial: Board of Governors to discuss online education

FIUSM Staff

The next meeting for the Board of Governors of the State University System will be held at Florida International University. One of the topics of the upcoming meeting will be the future of online education in the state of Florida.

During the meeting, the BoG will lay out a strategic long-term plan for online education that will be in place for the next 10 years. As far as anyone knows, Florida is the first state whose colleges are working together to decide where online education will be in the year 2025.

According to “FIU Beyond Possible 2020,” the plan is to increase the number of online classes by 15 percent, from 25 percent to 40 percent. Hybrid courses will make up 30 percent of these courses by 2020; as of right now they make up eight percent.

Hybrid courses have a portion of traditional face-to-face teaching replaced by web-based online learning.

We at The Beacon hope the BoG’s long-term plan for online education will make online courses more affordable and accessible to students pursuing a higher education.

FIU students could benefit from this as most of our students are commuters who are tasked with balancing school, work and family. This leaves very little time for students to commute to class in person. Online courses would allow them to pursue their education from home or from wherever it is convenient for them.

This could also benefit students that take courses at the Biscayne Bay Campus and must commute between the the main campus and the north campus. For students, commuting on the Panther Shuttle costs $5 round trip.

University students who study abroad or who take internships during the year would also benefit from online courses to continue advancing their degree.

Taking the majority of their classes online could cut the costs for students and save them time as well. Online courses are becoming a common occurrence in academia. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, one out of four students in college took an online course in Fall 2012.

However, not all University programs would completely benefit from more online courses. For example, Jamie Sutton, chair of the English department, said to Student Media in July 2015 that he hopes to accommodate the online goals to a friendlier version of the English classes.

Sutton’s proposal to the percentage of online classes is 60 percent traditional courses, 20 percent hybrid courses and 20 percent online. This proposal could be considered by the Board of Governors. However, we would like to hear from the BoG if each university could create a unique online course plan.

[Image from Flickr]

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