http://acrlog.org/2005/11/06/professional-education-recruitment-and-the-online-degree/ Blogging by and for academic and research librarians Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:32:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://acrlog.org/2005/11/06/professional-education-recruitment-and-the-online-degree/comment-page-1/#comment-112 steven bell Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:16:23 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2005/11/06/professional-education-recruitment-and-the-online-degree/#comment-112 I think it is difficult to generalize about the graduates of online and F2F education. Getting to the heart of whether or not either one is well qualified for a professional position, for me, depends more on the individual. I too have taught LIS courses both online and F2F. How well online works can depend on the subject matter, the student, and the educator. All may be well or poorly suited to online learning. I had students who went well beyond what we covered in class because of their own passion for learning. Other students barely kept up and really should have been in a F2F course. Not that many librarians use DIALOG these days, but I always felt challenged to teach this in an online setting. I could do it because the technology makes it possible, but I never felt the graduates of the online version were as skilled as the ones who took it F2F where I could work with them individually in a hands-on lab setting. Catching searching mistakes and correcting them on the spot is something I can do F2F, not online (no, co-joint searching just doesn't do the job - not to mention trying to do that with 20 or 25 students). Still a good, motivated learner should come out of online courses with enough of the basics to provide a sufficient foundation for on-the-job learning. I think it is difficult to generalize about the graduates of online and F2F education. Getting to the heart of whether or not either one is well qualified for a professional position, for me, depends more on the individual. I too have taught LIS courses both online and F2F. How well online works can depend on the subject matter, the student, and the educator. All may be well or poorly suited to online learning. I had students who went well beyond what we covered in class because of their own passion for learning. Other students barely kept up and really should have been in a F2F course. Not that many librarians use DIALOG these days, but I always felt challenged to teach this in an online setting. I could do it because the technology makes it possible, but I never felt the graduates of the online version were as skilled as the ones who took it F2F where I could work with them individually in a hands-on lab setting. Catching searching mistakes and correcting them on the spot is something I can do F2F, not online (no, co-joint searching just doesn’t do the job – not to mention trying to do that with 20 or 25 students). Still a good, motivated learner should come out of online courses with enough of the basics to provide a sufficient foundation for on-the-job learning.

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