Posts Tagged ‘online education’

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Professors Seek Support for Online Education

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Recently, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Sloan National Commission on Online Learning released a benchmarking study that found that professors are open to teaching online courses, but do not believe they are receiving adequate support to do so. Let’s look at some specific findings:

The consensus from more than 10,700 faculty members and 231 interviews with administrators, professors and students at APLU institutions was that it takes more effort to both develop and teach an online course than a traditional classroom course. Interestingly, a larger number of older professors reported having a harder time teaching an online class than younger professors, but combined, a majority (nearly 70 percent) considered the time-consuming effort it takes to develop online courses as a barrier to teaching online.

In addition, out of eight categories related to online education, respondents rated public universities below average in seven categories including:

* support for online course development and delivery,

* protection of intellectual property,

* incentives for developing and delivering online courses,

* and consideration of online teaching activity in promotion and tenure decisions.

The eighth category, technology infrastructure, was rated average.

As for the future of online courses, the study found that more than 60 percent of faculty think insufficient compensation for the extra work required for online courses is not motivating to developing Web-based programmes. In fact, respondents gave the institution incentives for developing and for delivering online courses category the lowest ranking of all.

Overall, the recent survey data indicates a growing acceptance of online learning among faculty, but this acceptance is accompanied by a number of frustrations. According to a Sloan Consortium survey of online learning, online enrolment in the U.S. alone has more than doubled from an estimated 1.6 million students in fall 2002 to 3.94 million students in fall 2007 and grew by 12.9 percent from fall 2006 to fall 2007, while several times that number is reported for international students and institutions (notably in European countries). There are, however, challenges that universities must overcome (including campus support services and faculty incentives) in order to promote the success of online education.

As the recognised leader in online training and supporter of the worldwide implementation of elearning, Gatlin International understands the needs and challenges of developing quality online programmes. That’s why we offer universities, governments and corporate institutions top certificate courses in a variety of languages, as well as provide the support they need to get enrolments. Gatlin International offers top courses like Six Sigma, Business Marketing Design and Video Game Design and Development . Discover how becoming a partner can help your institution gain support in course development and make online education easy.


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4 Ways to Prepare Yourself for an Online Course

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

by: Jennifer Miesse, Student

Online courses today make learning easier and more effective than ever. Putting in a little bit of prep work will ensure that your class runs as smoothly as possible and your time will be more productive. Rather than buying fresh school supplies and a new outfit like you did in elementary school to these simple steps will help you prepare for your first day of class to start you off on the right foot.
1. Familiarise yourself with technology
Log into your online classroom and have a look around. Click every link and try out all of the message boards; fiddle with anything that’s new to you. Bookmarks important links and spend about twenty minutes getting acclimated to the workflow of your virtual space. If your online class will be utilising or teaching you new software, such as QuickBooks for a Bookkeeping course , make sure it is installed properly on your computer and runs without any hiccups.
2. Have a backup plan
Compile any and all contact information you may need if you have a question or issue while taking your course. A simple sheet with your professor’s email, links to technical support for your college or educational institution, and your internet service provider’s phone number makes a handy back up plan when you have a quick question or issue with anything.
3. Find a good workspace
Keep in mind that your workspace will be your classroom. Make sure to pick a quiet place with plenty of room to spread out your homework, so that you can work easily without distractions. Online classes are self-paced, which means that you can study at your leisure and in your pyjamas, but you also want a place to go where you can accomplish all that you need to.
4. Get reading material
Whether online or in print, having extra reference materials can make your learning experience easier and more in-depth. A good idea is to pick up any reading material suggested by your online professor, as well as any books pertaining to the subject of your study. For example, when taking medical coding online classes you would want a coding book to refer to while working on online tests or homework. As any student can tell you textbooks and reference materials can get very pricey, but not all of your study tools have to be expensive. TextbookMedia is a site where you can download e-books or even receive free textbooks by offsetting the cost with having advertising sections in them. Other great options include half.com or Half Price Books. Even a quick web search might turn up relevant Internet sites as invaluable as any book, and free to boot.
So, by simply putting in a little bit of prep work before starting your online class you can ensure that your learning process will go quicker and more smoothly.

Web Worker Careers: SEM & SEO

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Today’s post from Web Worker Daily says that search engine marketing can increase exposure of a company’s Web site and drive business online. More and more professionals are turning to SEO training to help upgrade their companies and their careers.

As companies strive to get discovered by customers on the increasingly crowded Internet, demand for the skills of search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) experts has grown.

Could a search engine-related career be right for you?

Types of Search Engine-Related Careers

Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) responsibilities involve creating, launching, managing and optimizing paid search campaigns. Critical thinking, problem solving and analysis play an important role as this job requires reviewing data and creating reports. The reports provide needed information for tweaking campaigns in order to boost their effectiveness. These jobs often require knowing how search marketing applications work.

SEM specialists research and select the right keywords to optimize sites with, write ads that compel people to take action and conduct tests to determine campaign effectiveness. People in this job optimize landing pages and use email, blogs, social networks and online PR to create marketing campaigns with high conversion and click-through rates (CTR). These jobs usually have a greater analytical focus than SEO jobs.

Search engine optimization experts focus on designing or modifying web sites to play nice with search engines and help the site appear higher on the search engine results pages. They make sure the site doesn’t have any aspects that negatively affect its standing with search engines. This career has overlaps with web design because improving a site’s ranking may call for making changes to the site’s content and structure.

It’s important to know the difference between “black hat” and “white hat” tactics as well as the pros and cons of each. Using black hat strategies can hurt a company’s standing in the SERPs. Once a company loses its standing, it’s very hard to climb back up. Rob Oskins of Capital Solutions Bancorp explains that SEO experts have two key roles: ensuring the search engines can crawl your site’s web pages easily by optimizing the site’s content and structure, and getting links from other sites. “SEO involves these two major areas. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not easy,” Oskins says.

How to Qualify

SEMs and PPC managers need to know how to use Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and similar services to create profitable campaigns. It helps to become Google Adwords certified and join the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO).

Knowing web design, HTML and other web site markup and technologies benefits those who want to work in SEO. “Having HTML experience when going into SEO is as important as learning the alphabet,” says Stephanie M. Cockerl of nextSTEPH. Some jobs require knowledge of languages like JavaScript, PHP and ASP.NET.

It’s possible to fall into the job through a happy accident like Christopher Noonan, president of Noon-an-Night Marketing. His brother needed to build a web site and market it. Noonan helped and discovered a new talent, and learned his skills the hard way through trials, testing and guessing, which he did for no pay. “The knowledge I gained in the first year by having a site to play with from the very beginning really helped my confidence and ability,” he says.

Some discover the career after a lay off. Cockerl learned PPC on the job with help from a mentor who was her former employee’s vendor.

Online Marketing Tools

Those in this career rely on Google AdWords, Google Analytics,  Wordtracker, WebTrends, bid management software, web tracking software, Microsoft Excel, instant messenger, texting, conference calls and email.

Find Clients

Consultants in this career find their clients mainly through referrals from current clients and online networks such as LinkedIn.

Would you consider a search engine-related career?

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