Web master’s:
Online degree to debut in Fall
BY DAVID F. SALISBURY
This fall Stanford will
offer its first completely online degree program: a
master's in electrical engineering. The students accepted
into the degree program will compete for graduate
admission directly with electrical engineering students
who intend to complete their graduate work on campus.
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"To the best of our
knowledge, we will be the first major research university
in the U.S. to offer a master's degree in engineering
totally online," says Joseph Goodman, professor of
electrical engineering and senior associate dean of the
School of Engineering.
For nearly 30 years,
Stanford's School of Engineering has offered graduate
engineering degree programs, non-credit courses,
certificate programs, seminars and short courses to
distance learners at some 300 companies using a
combination of microwave, videotape, satellite and
two-way digital video technology. Since 1994, the
Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD) has
been experimenting with delivery of courses via the
Internet. After a research project with the Stanford
Center for Telecommunications demonstrated the demand for
online access among working professionals, SCPD
established Stanford Online to deliver Stanford courses
to the desktop of the distance learner. The service
already offers Stanford credit for a variety of online
courses, but, until now, there have not been enough
online offerings to allow a student to obtain an advanced
degree in this fashion.
The start-up costs of
putting the 30 courses being offered in the new program
online are being supported by a $450,000 grant from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The grant will cover
incremental costs for the first two years of the program.
By the third year, participants expect it to be
self-supporting. The new web-based offerings will be
priced similarly to existing remotely delivered courses,
which are considerably more expensive than normal
tuition.
The technologies involved
in offering the online program include audio/video
streaming with synchronized slide shows. Other
technologies allow the electronic distribution of class
handouts and notes, synchronous and asynchronous
interaction among the students and between the students
and their instructors, and in some cases the electronic
posting of homework and exams. Stanford has joined with
Microsoft and Compaq to provide its online students with
state-of-the-art communications technology.
"We are going to give
the people in industry the same courses as if they were
here on campus," says John Hennessy, dean of the
School of Engineering. "They will experience the
same intellectual rigor, the same up-to-date treatment of
material. This is what makes Stanford's continuing
education programs so successful."
Stanford studies have
found that there is no difference between distance
learners and on-campus students when judged by test
scores, according to the program's overseers: Goodman;
Dale Harris, executive director of the Center for
Telecommunications; and Andy DiPaolo, director of the
Stanford Center for Professional Development and senior
associate dean. Under certain conditions, distance
learners actually score higher.
"In the industrial
age we went to school. In the communication age the
school comes to us," DiPaolo says. "Through
Stanford Online we intend to prove this concept by making
a portion of the graduate engineering curriculum
available to qualified students anywhere, anytime and on
demand."
On the other hand, there
is little doubt that "virtual" students miss
out on a number of very valuable intellectual experiences
available on campus. To compensate at least partially for
this lack, the Center for Telecommunications will provide
online students with a variety of interactive seminars,
regular online discussions of relevant topics, and
non-credit short courses on practical telecommunications
topics.
"Our primary goal is
education," Harris says. "We will consider our
online degree to be successful only if it's the highest
quality available, and if the education of its graduates
compares favorably in all respects with that received by
their on-campus counterparts."
The Department of
Electrical Engineering is one of 10 academic departments
in the School of Engineering at Stanford. Its graduate
program was ranked first among those at American
universities by the National Research Council in 1995.
The department awards approximately 285 master's degrees
annually. Participants expect about 50 students to sign
up for the online degree. By studying full time, a
student can obtain the degree in a single year. But most
distance learners are expected to take three to four
years to complete the program, producing a graduation
rate of 10 to 15 online master's students per year. SR
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