Brief update on StraighterLine, one of my potential disruptors

In a recent post, I described several organizations that seemed to me to be potential disruptors on the higher education space.  StraighterLine, which focuses on offering introductory college coursework on line, is one of these.

StraighterLine has now issued its first "report card", a survey of their students. The survey looked at such things as student satisfaction, convenience, perception of course rigor, and whether the student was able to obtain credit from a college of their choice for the StraighterLine course. In brief, the students seemed highly pleased with the courses on all parameters. Importantly, over 90% of those who sought college credit for the course were able to obtain it.  

The response rate to the survey was modest, and it would have been nice to see some validity discussion in the survey. Nevertheless, the report card indicates that StraighterLine is finding strong student approval of its method of offering an inexpensive way to get college introductory courses online, and that those courses are being recognized and accepted by traditional institutions.  Sounds like a good step along the path of disruption! 

Comments

[Ingrid Ahrens Massey]

Do you feel these "disruptors" are the key to globalizing higher education and making it available to all? Do you feel the quality of online learning is comparable to that of traditional, brick and mortar institutions?

Lloyd responds: I do think the disruptive innovations will be key in increasing availability of education, and they will play some role in globalization of higher ed. - although it is really difficult to predict how globalization will play out. "Quality" is a tricky word - online will never reproduce the social interactions of an expensive campus experience - which brings benefits in many aspects of personal growth. In terms of knowledge transmission, growth of critical thinking, development of teamwork, etc I think appropriately designed online courses can do as well as or better than traditional campus based courses.

[CME Online]

I never heard of a disruptor term in education. I don't really get the point..is StraighterLine a disruptor? How is it connected to higher education?

Lloyd responds: check out the earlier post "Potential disruptors in the higher education space" http://bit.ly/qj51DL