Dickson, K. (2005). A thousand years in thirty virtual days: Summer online courses and the sophomore survey.. The Texas Journal of Distance Learning [Online serial], 2(2), 36-43. Available: http://www.txjdl.org/articles/v2i2/days/
A Thousand Years in Thirty Virtual Days: Summer Online Courses and the Sophomore Survey
Summer online courses are a recent product of universities seeking a profitable niche in the brave new world of distance education and students in search of challenging and convenient courses that fit into their already packed schedules. As the literature of online learning continues to mature, serious study is now needed to address the unique concerns of summer online programs, including how course duration affects best practices and how the model might affect student populations. This paper considers how a private, residential university confronted the principal challenges of designing a reading-intensive summer online course for an abbreviated semester aimed at first-time online students.