[Roberton3]

Online classes -- at least the way they currently work -- are a very poor substitute for a real class.  I've never taught one myself, but I've talked with other faculty who have, and their opinions of online classes are really negative (if you talk with them in private, off-the-record -- in public, they're more positive, because college administrators are very aggressively pushing online classes).  The major concerns I've heard are: (1) Cheating is rampant in these classes.  One professor guessed that three-quarters of his students cheat.  (2) There's much less contact with faculty and teaching assistants, and it's typically via email or online chat rather than face-to-face.  (3) For classes with any lab or hands-on aspects, there's just no way to adequately replicate that remotely.

The most positive things I've heard those faculty say are that online classes can be adequate for some intro-level classes (ones that are usually taught in brobdingnagian lectures anyway, and don't have labs or anything else hands-on), and that even a bad class is better than no class at all (online courses can reach students who might otherwise not make it to college).  And there's a lot of truth there.  So there is definitely a role for online courses.  But they're not anywhere close to being an adequate substitute for the majority of college classes (at least with today's technology).  And the idea that any real university would allow a student to take all of his courses online is pretty scary.  It greatly lowers my opinion of Texas A&M that they're allowing that.

The cheating issue is also particularly a problem if we're talking about athletes taking courses online.  If you're going to allow that, you might as well waive academic requirements for athletes altogether.  I'm not saying that Manziel is cheating.  But he could be, and if he is, he'll never get caught.

[Roberton3]

Online classes -- at least the way they currently work -- are a very poor substitute for a real class.  I've never taught one myself, but I've talked with other faculty who have, and their opinions of online classes are really negative (if you talk with them in private, off-the-record -- in public, they're more positive, because college administrators are very aggressively pushing online classes).  The major concerns I've heard are: (1) Cheating is rampant in these classes.  One professor guessed that three-quarters of his students cheat.  (2) There's much less contact with faculty and teaching assistants, and it's typically via email or online chat rather than face-to-face.  (3) For classes with any lab or hands-on aspects, there's just no way to adequately replicate that remotely.

The most positive things I've heard those faculty say are that online classes can be adequate for some intro-level classes (ones that are usually taught in brobdingnagian lectures anyway, and don't have labs or anything else hands-on), and that even a bad class is better than no class at all (online courses can reach students who might otherwise not make it to college).  And there's a lot of truth there.  So there is definitely a role for online courses.  But they're not anywhere close to being an adequate substitute for the majority of college classes (at least with today's technology).  And the idea that any real university would allow a student to take all of his courses online is pretty scary.  It greatly lowers my opinion of Texas A&M that they're allowing that.

The cheating issue is also particularly a problem if we're talking about athletes taking courses online.  If you're going to allow that, you might as well waive academic requirements for athletes altogether.  I'm not saying that Manziel is cheating.  But he could be, and if he is, he'll never get caught.