Online course offerings continue to grow As any business executive will tell you, giving customers what they want is the surest way to develop loyalty and more demand for your product. Temple's OnLine Learning Program is living proof of that maxim. In the last three years, Temple has gone from offering a handful of courses online to more than 50 courses this semester. And, it has seen the number of enrolled students increase from fewer than 500 in the 1998 spring semester to more than 750 students last semester.
People have lives and it is hard for our lives to jell with someone else's schedule.
This semester Temple will offer a variety of online classes in several disciplines, including accounting, anthropology, calculus, economics and physics. If the topics seem weighty, so are the expectations of the students who register for the classes, Schifter said. Students can't just come to class, take notes and hope to absorb the information by osmosis. There's a partnership in distance education. Students are much more responsible for their learning.