{"id":4145,"date":"2014-08-18T06:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T05:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2014-08-15T17:22:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T16:22:00","slug":"online-education-convenience-is-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2014\/08\/18\/online-education-convenience-is-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Online education: Convenience is key"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"molecule\"<\/a>

{credit}CORBIS{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

Contributor Charles Choi<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week we introduced this series on online education<\/a>, highlighting the benefits that it can have for\u00a0established professors and\u00a0<\/span>current students. The latter are the biggest clientele of online science courses at the <\/span>University of Buffalo<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0New York, especially\u00a0the students enrolled at the university itself, says Lara Hutson, a research assistant professor at the University of Buffalo. \u201cThey may need the biochemistry course to satisfy a prerequisite for their major.\u201d Hutson teaches an online biochemistry course during the summer as well as a number of traditional courses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest attraction, Hutson says, is the convenience. An online course may be the only one they can fit into their schedule. \u201cThey can go home to wherever they live and take it \u2013 for example, if they have a job there,\u201d Hutson says. \u201cOur students are mostly from other parts of New York, but I\u2019ve had one student take it from Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The convenience of online courses was certainly Monica Mogilewsky\u2019s motivation. \u201cI was working at the Myakka City Lemur Reserve<\/a> and I lived onsite. I worked on-call 24-7, managing a colony of lemurs, so commuting to a campus was not an option,\u201d she says. \u201cThe flexibility that online learning offered made it possible for me to get my degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents in my online courses may need my chemistry class for their requirements, and are often working full-time, or in the military, or working on oil rigs two weeks on and two weeks off, or are in distant villages,\u201d says Susan Mircovich, an assistant professor of chemistry at Kenai Peninsula College, a campus of the University of Alaska at Anchorage<\/a>. \u201cAn online class may be the only way if you cannot fit a classroom lesson into your schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online programmes can help students balance family and work. \u201cI was living in Charlotte with my family, working full time, and couldn\u2019t take two years off to attend business school on campus at Chapel Hill or anywhere,\u201d says Julie Goodliffe, CEO of Sustainable Ethanol Technologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Access to course materials is a huge benefit as well. \u201cStudents can review recorded lectures as many times as they want \u2013 they may watch how to solve a chemistry problem five times in order to get it,\u201d Mircovich says.<\/p>\n

Next we’re exploring how cost and credits are important in making your decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributor Charles Choi  … Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45013,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,199],"tags":[659,661,653,23],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia-2","category-research-2","tag-biochemistry","tag-campus","tag-online-learning","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}