In 2012, the Online Learning Consortium released a report based on ten years worth of data collection. The results aren’t startling, in that they report what is already evident — online learning is growing in institutions of higher education around the United States, and the world.
To provide some background, the consortium began its mission as the Sloan Consortium, providing early online educators with original research, leading-edge instruction and best-practice publications, to community-driven conferences and expert guidance. Since their beginning, the consortium has provided foundational data and research in technology enabled learning.
To summarize some of their findings, here is some of what they learned:
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Over 6.7 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2011 term, an increase of 570,000 students over the previous year.
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Thirty-two percent of higher education students now take at least one course online.
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Seventy-seven percent of academic leaders rate the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face.
To learn more, go to:
Ten Years of Online Learning – OLC Report