NCAA will no longer accept BYU online courses for credit

[pam]

Interesting that BYU was put on the hit list. Why not University of Phoenix? Or numerous other colleges that offer online classes?

ksl.com - NCAA cracks down on correspondence courses

[Matthew0059]

This is interesting. The online high school I attended for my senior year of high school had a huge amount of student/teacher interaction.

I wonder why just BYU's online high school courses and the American School got singled out? According to the NCAA's website those two are the ones most frequently submitted to the NCAA, so that might be a start. Time will tell if this is an honest attempt to improve the academic quality of prospective student athletes, or some kind of bias.

It is interesting that the committee overseeing Division II schools will propose similar measures in June. I wonder if this also is a move to crack down on homeschoolers, because (again according to the NCAA's website) it is "nontraditional courses" that are being examined.

[hordak]

scratch that.

Edited May 26, 2010 by hordak

[Moksha]

I wonder why just BYU's online high school courses and the American School got singled out? According to the NCAA's website those two are the ones most frequently submitted to the NCAA, so that might be a start.

"In 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune reported how an unknown number of high school and transferring athletes have taken online courses to become eligible to play Division I college sports. The students typically need credits in subjects like math or English or need to increase their grade point average.

Some of those athletes and their suitors or coaches have been caught cheating, especially with BYU correspondence.

One of the best-known cases remains that of Ricky Clemons, who took nine

credit hours from BYU as part of 24 credit hours he completed from three schools in the summer of 2002. Clemons was a high school dropout who was trying to get eligible to play basketball at the University of Missouri. Students trying to get or stay eligible to play sports at the University of Kansas, University of Mississippi and Nicholls State University also have been found to have improperly taken BYU correspondence courses. In the case of Nicholls State, some athletes didn't know coaches enrolled them in the BYU courses.

Rules passed last month by the NCAA require students and instructors to have "regular access and interaction."

NCAA bans Y.'s online courses - Salt Lake Tribune

[Guest mormonmusic]

I've had some experience with teaching online courses. And I just finished a 3 year program as a student that I completed partly online and partly in a physical classroom. I'm currently taking another program of study as a student in Finance amd doing it online.

With these experiences over the last 10 years, I don't blame certain universities for not accepting online credits for undergraduate programs, particularly when there is a high application rate.

I've seen students give beautiful wonderful answers in threaded discussions like the ones we have here at LDS.Net (except in the context of a course topic for grades). Then, if I put these same students in a classroom to provide written material, all they can do is write in incoherent broken English. In all these cases, it's been with people who have English as a second language. Obviously they have someone on the other end of the Internet completing their online threads for them. As far as a I can tell, this isn't the norm, but it's happened about three times in my 10 years of online and onsite teaching.

Same with exams -- you have no idea who is taking the exams if they are purely online and not proctored. One student outright admitted that one of his classmates said his father took his online statistics exam for him. When exams are multiple choice, you have no idea who is clicking those buttons signifying the student answer.

I hope the day comes when strict standards are put in place for the delivery of online undergraduate courses. Some states are already doing it, but it's not nearly where it should be yet.

I support these universities who reject online course credits for undergraduate programs.

On the other hand, I support online education for graduate programs. There's no way I'd be able to go back to school if the courses weren't offered online in my phase of life, and I find the experience is as least as good as a classroom experience.

Edited May 26, 2010 by mormonmusic

[Hemidakota]

Interesting that BYU was put on the hit list. Why not University of Phoenix? Or numerous other colleges that offer online classes?

ksl.com - NCAA cracks down on correspondence courses

As you stated Pam, let us also include

Stanford

MIT

UCSD

or other major univeristy!!!!

[Wingnut]

Interesting that BYU was put on the hit list. Why not University of Phoenix? Or numerous other colleges that offer online classes?

ksl.com - NCAA cracks down on correspondence courses

Does the University of Pheonix compete in intercollegiate athletics?

[Matthew0059]

Some of those athletes and their suitors or coaches have been caught cheating, especially with BYU correspondence.

Well that's unfortunate- I wonder if the greatest percentage of cheaters comes from BYU and the American School, and that's why they've started the crackdown with those two?

Rules passed last month by the NCAA require students and instructors to have "regular access and interaction."

In the one year of online high school I took, access and interaction was frequent- multiple daily emails and weekly phone calls. I wonder if the BYU online courses do that.