In recent years, an increasing number of universities have chosen to educate students via online courses. From my perspective, while it has some disadvantages, this is a positive development in education.
On the one hand, universities face challenges to maintain control when students participate in the online course. Ensuring actual learning is a daunting task for lecturers because of the complexities of online management. For example, a student not dedicated to the courses can achieve high exam scores through cheating, resulting in a decline in education standards. Moreover, from the students’ perspective, online studying can make it difficult for them to concentrate on the lessons and maintain discipline because of the absence of face-to-face interaction with teachers. For instance, the lack of immediate feedback and personal connection can lead to the decline of learners’ motivation.
Nevertheless, I would contend that these negative impacts are outweighed by the benefits of educating on online platforms. Delivering education through the Internet can help universities save both money and time. Specifically, universities can pay less to rent lecture halls despite the acceptance of a large number of students. Besides that, because the curriculum content resembles over time, lecturers can reuse the recorded lectures to focus on supporting students with other important problems. Additionally, students can flexibly access online university courses, at any time from any place with an Internet connection. Illustratively, an individual from Asia can enroll in a master’s course in America without the need of physically present.
In conclusion, while studying on the Internet in universities has some drawbacks, I firmly believe that this is a great development in the field of education. It is recommended that universities should implement some measures to ensure academic quality in the long run.