The percentage of academic officers who said online learning
was important to their institution has fallen from 69.1% to 65.9%, according to
the 2013 Survey of Online Learning from the Babson Survey Research Group.
The report blamed the decline on schools that don’t have online
offerings and have no plans to start.
The percentage of academic leaders who rated online
learning outcomes as the same or superior to face-to-face instruction rose from
57% in 2003 to 77% in 2012, but slipped to 74% in the 2013 report. The survey
noted more 26% of respondents from institutions without online offerings said
that learning outcomes were worse online, an increase of 3% since the 2012
report.
However, 90% of the respondents also said it was likely
or very likely that every college student will be taking at least one online
course by 2018, according to a report in eCampus News.
“Baccalaureate institutions continue to hold the most
negative views toward online education and are the largest proportion of
institutions with no online offerings,” the authors of the report wrote. “That
said, a majority of these institutions provide some level of online
instruction. Associate institutions have among the most favorable views towards
online and were among the earliest institutions to embrace online instruction.”
