Many Colleges Can’t Track Completion Rates, Online-Course Survey Finds - Lawrence Biemiller, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Students are somewhat less likely to complete online courses than those taught in classrooms, a survey of online programs by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has found. The “2013 Managing Online Education Survey” was conducted by the commission’s nonprofit Cooperative for Educational Technologies. Survey respondents included two- and four-year institutions in the United States and Canada. Among the findings: Institutions that offer both on-campus and online courses and were able to report completion rates said that about 5 percent fewer students completed online courses than traditional courses. More than 85 percent of responding institutions have adopted standards of some kind for their online courses. In more than half the cases, the standards are those of a regional accrediting agency More than 83 percent of respondents said “the vast majority” of online-course content had been developed by faculty members at the institutions offering the courses http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/many-colleges-cant-track-completion-rates-online-course-survey-finds/49005