Byron Brown, an economics professor and coordinator of instructional technology support for Libraries, Computing and Technology, said MSU has been offering online courses for more than a decade to provide a supplement for learning in a digital age.

Any department on campus can develop an online course through MSU’s Virtual University, Brown said, but all departments are required to uphold the course’s objectives in a way that proves successful in an online setting.

International relations and psychology sophomore Kanza Khan said she enrolled in an online class to get ahead in school while living at home in Troy, Mich., this summer. She said she was expecting it to be easy, as she could complete the assignments at her own pace.

But Khan, who is taking Economics 201, said she soon realized her class would require more concentration because of its fast-paced nature.

“I’m more of an interactive learner,” she said. “I need interaction with students and professors. I need to learn and participate to understand what’s going on.”

Online classes are useful for students who are not near campus, Brown said, but the lack of face-to-face communication with an instructor often is what makes an online class difficult.

“A lot of students don’t like that they cant get questions answered right away,” Brown said. “They’re used to getting instant responses, the Facebook-Twitter generation, so an email that sits for three or four hours, they find interrupting to their course of study and what they wanted to work on.”

Zoology senior Morgan Lindsay said she has not taken a class entirely online but struggled to submit assignments and communicate with her professors on ANGEL last semester.

Despite the technological problems she had, Lindsay said she would have no problem with online classes, which are “more self-taught.”
“I’ve heard they’re a lot easier in general, but I think motivation would be the hardest part,” she said.

Brown said a drawback to virtual instruction is students are responsible for completing assignments on their own, and students who lack the discipline to do so may find it hard to keep up.

But some online classes have evolved into what Brown called a “blended” or “hybrid” version of both online and classroom instruction, which allows students to have beneficial face-to-face interaction with their instructors.

Khan said a person’s success in an online class depends on his or her response to virtual instruction, and she prefers learning in a classroom setting.

“A person should know what kind of learner they are and, based on that, they would decide to take the online classes instead of the convenience factor,” she said.