Second Class No Longer

About the Book

No one could have predicted thirty years ago that online learning would become such a key facet of our educational landscape in nearly every corner of the world. Online teaching and learning have evolved rapidly and far more widely than imaginable, accompanied by huge impacts on business, society, and our entire educational enterprise. Drawing on his extensive experience in online teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate level as well as his 25 years in higher ed administration, the author paints a global picture of the evolution of online education. He describes how one country after another has witnessed the astonishing growth of online degrees and “microcredentials” of all kinds. Along the way, he dispels the myths and misperceptions that have grown up around online learning. With incisive analysis built on sold data, the author demonstrates that online programs are no longer regarded as second class but in fact are fully in the mainstream of higher education. Not only that but he predicts that, by 2030, they will become the gold standard by which the more traditional degrees will be judged.

About the Author

Teaching online was both a passion and an avocation of the author for close to ten years. He taught more than 50 undergraduate and graduate online courses over a ten-year span, in subjects ranging from entrepreneurship to organizational behavior, research methods, sustainability, and management. Prior to this, the author’s career took him from the University of Southern California, where he received his doctorate, to five private colleges and universities and two public universities where he served as a faculty member and, later, as Dean of a business school and Vice President of Academic Affairs.