Creative instructional design is necessary to develop online courses that fully engage students, say educators. The scenes and the text all have to be orchestrated together. You have to do a lot of planning on the front end. Part of the planning also requires training faculty members to be online facilitators, a far different role than serving as a classroom lecturer. Those who can find ways to get training in their off hours will be more valued.
Studies show that there is a large potential market for Web-based education.
For example, when the Office of Continuing Engineering Education of the University of Illinois sent out a survey to people on its mailing list, it discovered that 88 percent of the respondents said they would be interested in taking a course on the Internet. Still, there are skeptics. James O. Bryant, Jr., associate dean and director of Engineering Extension Services at Auburn University, says he is not sure that students are served any better by Web-based education than by videotape. Such skepticism notwithstanding, preliminary research suggests that Web-based engineering education is effective. For example, a study done at the University of Illinois found that those students taking graduate courses in electrical engineering on the Internet get higher grades and seem more engaged than students taking the same course using videotape.