| PRESENT AND FUTURE - A UNIVERSITY WITHOUT WALLS |
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| UNIVERSITIES WITHOUT WALLS |
Online
Higher Education is Growing Exponentially...
Technology and Education
Many Leaner Management Systems also known as
Course Management Systems or Platforms offer services of various degrees and dependability. All
are not equal.
In 2008, Global Academy conducted an exhaustive study of online platforms students believed
were the easiest to navigate and the best to use. They were charged with the task to evaluate the educational challenges such
systems demanded. Available on this page is a link to the original
study that was conducted in 2008 among beginning and upper division South American bi-lingual college students. As
a control group, they were deliberately selected because they had little or no previous experience with online classroom platforms
except what they may have read in the international press.
Global Academy conducted the research over six months in an area
of the world not inhibited by prejudice, hype or preconceived notions about online education or what a Learner Management
System or Course Management System could or could not do. The task simply was to uncover what students felt was the
best and most user friendly and capable system for the students at the time, particularly those who had little or no experience
with any online platform.
In 2015, the firm updated the research based on the previous eight years of online technology
development and evolved what can only be considered as THE cutting edge of online education delivery and performance.
2019
Today, there are dozens of Learning Management System hybrid platforms worldwide to choose
among; most are paid-for subscription type services. Yet, the very best, remain basically free. Meanwhile, many overlook
these services under the belief that if it costs a lot, it must be good. In this arena nothing could be further from the truth.
However, faced with the decision today to spend upwards of $200,000 to migrate and engage a system for an entire student body
of say 4000 plus, the cost to cover training for faculty to operate a new system and the school to administer it finds essentially
such systems are complicated systems but nothing more than an attempt by providers to get control of the student body and
the schools records. This, of course, permits the provider the ability to ensure their arrangement to operate and manipulate
the production of records, the loyalty of the faculty to their product, and enables the vendor the assurance that because
of the difficulty of unraveling it once it is installed, a locked contract for years to come. Hundreds if not thousands of
schools are in this predicament today.Yours may be one of them.
