Skeptics say that a quality education is sacrificed when one decides to enroll in an online education program. They cite reasons such as lack of face-to-face interaction, the ability to cheat, and a de-emphasis on time management. The fact is though, in our connected world, online education isn’t going away. In a study conducted by Aslanian Market Research presented at LeadsCon last month, online education is witnessing major growth. Around 10% of higher education students took all of their courses online in 2010, and that number will continue to grow. By 2015, it’s predicted that 15% of students will complete their entire program online.

For many, online education provides a means to study while working around work and family obligations. Choosing online education though, shouldn’t be a copout. Even though you’re studying from a distance, you can still make the most of your education. Follow these tips to ensure you’re maximizing your potential in an online setting.

As Tempting As It Is, Don’t Cheat

You’ll be doing yourself a disservice. Even though answers can be more accessible when you’re working alone from your computer, part of the learning process is discovering things on your own and learning from your mistakes. You’ll be better off in the long run if you treat your online learning experience as if you were in a traditional classroom.

Make Friends From Across The Country

Interaction is still a key part of online education, even from opposite corners of the country. Use the friends you make in class as resources during the class and professional contacts after your program ends. Likely, you’ll enjoy your experience more if you’re connecting with other students.

Make A Weekly Schedule And Stick To It!

Online education can make it easy to get off track and let everything slide until the end when it’s due. But what good will that do you in your job? Our lives are typically based on deadlines, so online classes are the perfect time to practice prioritizing and scheduling accordingly. Each week, write yourself a schedule that accounts not only for homework and studying, but for your current work responsibilities, family obligations, etc. Try your best to stick to it, and at the end of the week, you’ll get to look back at all you’ve accomplished.

What tips do you have to add for making the most of your online education?

Some of us from Best Online Universities, LLC were lucky enough to attend LeadsCon at the Mirage in Las Vegas earlier this week. For those not in the industry, LeadsCon is the pioneering conference and expo dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of those operating in the online lead generation industry. The audience of about 2,600 people consisted of representatives from a variety of verticals from B2C and B2B lead generation, including online education, insurance, credit cards, mortgage, home improvement, senior housing, health care, and others.

Some of our favorite presentations came from Carol B. Aslanian, SVP of Aslanian Market Research who outlined the demographic profile of online learners today, Michael Norton, Behavioral Scientist at Harvard Business School who discussed the co-creation continuum and Nathan Labenz and Jay Gierak of Stik who made a case for the importance of social proof in search.

Operating in the online education space, we’re back from LeadsCon excited to implement some of the many ideas discussed, in order to make our web properties even more useful for potential students. If we had to come up with a list of 3 key takeaways for our industry, they would be as follows:

1. Personalization is rewriting the rules of paid and organic search. Social search is going to become important for all online marketers and businesses in the coming year – social annotations such as Google +1 provided a 20-200% increase in CTR (click through rate) in one study.
2. The lead generation industry is seeing a shift from a sole focus on monetization to a more consumer-centric view.
3. Despite the growth and chatter around for-profit institutions in recent years, a majority of students (62% in one study) don’t recognize a difference between for-profit and not-for-profit institutions.

What did you find to be your key takeaways, LeadsCon attendees?

The following video, by Best Online Universities, LLC highlights the following topics, including:

• The best online universities in the United States
• Benefits of obtaining your bachelor’s degree online
• Earning potential for degree holders
• Why brick-and-mortar institutions are including online as part of their long-term strategy

What Are America’s Best Online Universities? – The best home videos are here

The event, that takes place at the Guggenheim Museum next Thursday, will likely address its latest product updates and how they will benefit educators and learners. For online learners, this could be huge. The tablet has already revolutionized learning, in that it allows the classroom and its related materials to be portable.

While fantastic for mobility and convenience, some question their effectiveness as a learning tool. Penn State released a study of their approaches to online mathematics programs, with mixed results. Some of the problems found related to the rendering of mathematical symbols. In general, tablets are geared specifically towards the written word, meaning that students of online courses related to mathematics should be aware of potential issues when selecting a tablet PC.

This is just the beginning for tablets though. It will be interesting to see how they evolve, and how online programs adapt them into their course design and curriculum. How do you think tablets will evolve over the next year?

5. Bachelor’s in Education

Even though in some areas in the United States recent graduates are hard pressed to find teaching jobs, the country is still in need of the next generation of quality educators. Upon completion of a bachelor’s degree in Education, students will be prepared to sit for their state’s Board of Education certification examination.

U.S. Department of Labor Average Salaries:
Elementary School Teacher: $54,330
Technical Education Teacher, Secondary School: $56,010
Special Education Teacher, Middle School: $56,500

4. Bachelor’s in Communications

Those interested in studying communications are typically tuned in to current events and changing trends. They thrive in fast-paced environments. A bachelor’s in Communication’s prepares students to work in a variety of communications roles including advertising, journalism, public relations, internal corporate communications and tv/radio/film.

U.S. Department of Labor Average Salaries:
Editors: $59,340
Reporters/Correspondents: $43,780
Public Relations Specialists: $59,150

3. Bachelor’s in Information Technology

This undergraduate degree has a major focus on computers and technology, it differs from a Computer Science degree in that students are also versed in management and information theory. IT professionals are trained to successfully bridge the gap between management strategy and back-end product development.

U.S. Department of Labor Average Salaries:
Computer Systems Analysts: $81,250
Network & Systems Administrators: $72,200
Software Developers: $90,410

2. Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice

An online bachelor’s in criminal justice is often the first step towards a career in security and law enforcement. A wide range of law and justice-related courses like psychology, sociology, law, and public administration are offered.

U.S. Department of Labor Average Salaries:
Probation Officers & Correctional Treatment Specialists: $51,240
Criminal Investigators & Detectives: $73,010
Social Worker: $52,270

1. Bachelor’s in Business Administration

A popular degree at brick-and-mortar institutions as well as online colleges and universities, business administration is likely to reign king as the most popular major of 2012. Students are trained in a variety of courses such as finance, marketing, human resources, strategy and basic information technology to prepare them for the always-evolving business climate.

U.S. Department of Labor Average Salaries:
Financial Managers: $116,970
Actuaries: $98,620
Insurance Underwriters: $65,220

1. Business
2. Computer Information Technology
3. Education
4. Engineering
5. Nursing

The number of students enrolled in online degree programs is increasing, and quickly. According to one study, “Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011,” it is reported that more than 6.1 million students took at least one online class during fall 2010. 10.1 percent more than the previous year.

Information regarding the quality of online education programs is lacking. Currently, prospective students don’t have the information that would aid them in determining the strengths and weaknesses of online degree programs they are considering enrolling in. U.S. News reported that they took on this project to begin filling this information gap.

Since this is the first time U.S. News has attempted to rank online education degree programs, it should be expected that the rankings methodology will fluctuate and become more sophisticated as online programs are better able to keep record of information that will be useful in evaluating the academic quality of their programs.

Besides the initial rankings, U.S. News plans to expand their directory of online programs with more detailed information and searchable data. For the past three decades, U.S. News has published rankings for traditional brick and mortar institutions and they’re aiming to bring the same quality and style of rankings to online programs. Despite controversy over the credibility of ranking systems, their popularity among students considering college cannot be ignored. Any information available to help students make an informed decision can only be seen as a positive. Don’t forget to check U.S. News on January 10th for the first-ever rankings. Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Last week, an article was published on Campus Technology.com by Richard Rose, who is the program chairman for instructional technology and design at West Texas A&M University. In the article, Rose reveals 6 easy steps for online success. For the benefit of our readers, I’ve summarized his points below. Don’t forget to check out the full article, here.

Secret 1: UX and Layout Matter

While early on, it was excusable for web-based courses to appear as if they were thrown together by a novice, with varying font sizes and lack of structure, it is not acceptable today. It’s imperative that not only is the content of the course well planned for and interesting, but that layout and structure are thoroughly considered as well. The bottom line is that students won’t respect the material if the course looks like a tech-savvy middle school student put it together.

Secret 2: Professors Should Be Connected And Ready To Respond

Students come to expect that their professors will respond, like, right now. That’s one of the perks of online learning. Students are able to have access to information and their professors almost constantly. Rose noted that he checks his student’s emails 3 times during the day to ensure a quick response to all students.

Secret 3: Most Students Prefer Structure

Some students fear taking online classes because they worry they don’t possess the self-motivation, or that the program will lack structure, and they’ll fall behind. One way to mitigate that fear is to provide online students with deadlines. Rose mentions that he provides his students with the option to work on a deadline-based schedule or a rolling schedule, and almost all of his students choose the deadline-based schedule, even when given the option! Alas, due dates aren’t that bad after all!

Secret 4: A Formal Forum For Student Feedback Should Be Provided

At Rose’s institution, each semester every student receives a formal phone appointment with the program chair in which the student is able to discuss issues such as how the program is going, specific class projects, student work-life balance and plans after graduation. While these sessions certainly are a great way for the student to sound-off, the conversations are also invaluable to program growth.

Secret 5: Capitalize On What Online Does Better Than Offline

A hot-button issue with online education is that certain elements of interaction that come with traditional classroom instruction cannot be replicated. And so be it. Sure, there are certain things that online education cannot offer, but there are also things it can offer. Instructor videos can be rewound and re-watched, something that doesn’t exist with an in person lecture. This allows students the opportunity to learn at their own pace.

Secret 6: A Perpetual Showcase Should Be Available

Like in elementary school when a teacher would put the best projects on the class bulletin board, the same idea can be practiced digitally. By showcasing the best work from a course, future students will have the ability to refer to the work of past students and also get a glimpse into the key learning objectives from the course.

Conclusion

Richard Rose offers very valuable insights into what it takes to effectively design and run an online course. This topic is not new however. Since the dawn of online education, instructional designers and program administrators have aimed to ensure that students are learning effectively and that enrollment in their programs is increasing. There are a few other notable articles that also address online course success including the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 17 Elements of Good Online Courses, Illinois Online Network and Strategies for Effective Online Course Design. What do you think makes for a good online course?

Angela Miller joins us as an Office Manager. She’s responsible for managing many of the day-to-day operations at Best Online Universities headquarters and provides administrative support for the finance department. She holds a bachelor’s degree in HR from Northeastern University and is currently pursuing her MBA from Concordia University Chicago. She’s the mother to three sons. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, sports, and watching movies.

Erin Gantner was hired to work with the monetization team and assist in editing our websites. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University. Erin spent several years working in sales and marketing before joining the team at Best Online Universities. In her free time, Erin enjoys a good run outside and attempting to branch out of her dining in options of sushi and pizza.

Christiana Hills is a link building specialist responsible for implementing link building strategies. Her main responsibility is to edit content that promotes our web properties. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Alma College in Michigan. Recently married, she relocated to Houston in September. She enjoys reading literature, running, and watching independent and foreign films in her spare time.

We’ll continue to focus on creating top-quality websites to help students meet their educational and career goals while generating leads for online universities. Having Angela, Erin and Christiana on board will enable us to refine our processes and focus on key projects that drive value to our business.