Moore & Kearsley How Distance Thesis

An interesting point they bring up is the circumvention of cheating by having another person complete your coursework:

In the future we may be able to remotely identify individuals using devices that scan finger, voice, or eye-prints technology, which is already in use for security applications, but at present this seems a rather extreme measure. (Moore & Kearsley)

This also introduces the problem of plagiarism that has seeming run rampant in both online and traditional brick and mortar education. "Plagiarism is a particular worry for educators in the online environment because materials can be so easy located in captured electronically that the line between legitimate research and plagiarism is sometimes not easy for students to recognize." (Moore & Kearsley) However, anti-plagiarism efforts have increased tremendously over the past several years, both in distance learning as well as traditional education. Web sites like TurnItIn.com and others have greatly improved the search for plagiarism in college term papers and theses. Requiring that all papers submitted to the online university to go through such sites adds another layer of security to online, as well as traditional, education.

While Moore and Kingsley go through great effort to give the teacher excellent tool by which to conduct online education with better confidence and superior results, one thing is clear, that it is not like traditional classroom education. There has been an initial effort to keep online learning as similar to brick and mortar classroom as possible. By creating actual class time with instructors via web interfaces and speakerphone connections, real time classes have been conducted. However, considering the need to have learning at your own schedule that students of this method prefer, real time classes are often disadvantageous. The attempt to maintain the human element and the traditional classroom setting has certainly limited the flexibility of distance learning. The Authors also touch upon the idea of Asynchronous Discussions as one of the advantages of this medium over real time classroom:

The basic pattern of the discussion forum is fairly standard: an opening message, the course designer prepares a question requiring a response, the instructor gives an explanation for reflection on some item of content, or students post an assignment, responding message, instructor or students are expected to reply to one person with an elaboration or alternative view, for question. (Moore & Kearsley)

Furthermore, anyone who has either been in the workforce or born into the computerized generation has a new concept of what the actual human element really is. This generation has become so accustomed to words on a page creating a dialog, whether instantaneously in chat rooms or through the slight delays of blog postings and e-mail, requiring that a physical presence is necessary for the classroom is almost vestigial. However, some distance learning is also a combination of both on- and off-campus independent and collaborative learning. The human element is always present in some form or another in any classroom environment.