Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Online Course Completion Rates

Online classes are completed by students at a rate very nearly the same as on campus classes.

With a sample of more than 60,000 registrations from Fall 2008 through Summer 2010 (2 full academic years).

The overall “remain registered” rate as 94.1% (95.0% onground, 92.5% online)

The overall “successful” rate (B or better for Grad, C or better for UG) was 82.9% (83.7% onground, 81.3% online)
Another 2.7% overall were incomplete or deferred, so possibly successful at a later date. (2.4% onground, 3.1% online.)

Online classes are taught - in most cases - by the same faculty member who teaches online. Very nearly 2/3 of the faculty members teaching online are mainstream tenured/tenure-track faculty members, emeriti, or full time clinical instructors on campus. The remainder are adjunct faculty members carefully selected and supervised by the departments and colleges. A total of more than 211 different faculty members taught online in the previous academic year. More 350 online class sections are offered online each term.

Faculty members, for the most part, take a social constructivist approach - engaging students and encouraging individual knowledge-building. Most faculty members check into their Blackboard daily and take pride in responding to student postings within 24 hours.

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