Who benefits most from online learning - student or school

NY Times has an interesting piece consisting of interviews with key educators, each of whom takes a position on the question of to whom the benefits of online learning accrue - student or school.  There's a little for everyone in this article.  Worth a read - particularly if you need a good summary of the key issues surrounding the viability and credibility of distance education.

College Degrees Without Going to Class - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

Online courses have been around for nearly two decades, but enrollment has soared in recent years as more universities increase their offerings. More than 4.6 million college students (about one in four) were taking at least one online course in 2008, a 17 percent increase over 2007.

Institutions like Rutgers University and the University of California system are looking at expanding online courses as a way to keep down tuition costs or increase revenues. Recently, Rutgers said it would triple online revenues from $20.5 million to $60 million in five years.

Who benefits most from online courses — students or colleges? Are online classes as educationally effective as in-classroom instruction? Should more post-secondary education take place online?

Under the category of "Did you see this?"

Check out this summary from iParadigms, the maker of Turnitin, which is a plagiarism detection technology.  All I can say is wow!  Really?  Are that many prospective college students copying and pasting their way into school?  I pass no judgment at this point, but if true, this study tells us a lot of what we all don't want to hear.

Personal statements attached to university applications should be the work of that applicant and help the university know more about the perspective applicant. It is safe to assume that more that 70,000 applicants that applied though this system did so with statements that may not have been their own work. The number of Internet sites that matched personal statement/ essay providing services leads one to question the additional 100,000 applicants whose personal statement contained a significant match (they may have borrowed or purchased all or part of their personal statement). It should be noted that Turnitin’s technology is configured to eliminate most random matches from the similarity reports. It should also be noted that the odds of writing the same 16 words, in the same order as another person (by chance) is less that 1 in one hundred billion (this is especially significant in a personal statement).

http://edgecastcdn.net/800404/static.turnitinadmissions.com/static/build/media/c67485a9a6b64b07d830f7c3173d4f4dcb_countrywide_report.pdf