OOOOOH BOOOOY!

This one got me fired up.

Before reading this post, you'll have to read the article I am actually responding to.
Which can be found here:
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Online-Education-Wont/133531/

And my response-with-vengeance

All of your reasons for why online education is apparently flawed and doomed to failure - whereby people will somehow conform to your opinion, realize their mistake at even caring about it, and revert to old institutional models of ivory tower education - are nothing but biased opinion from a very institutionalized worldview attempting to attack the new in order to cling to the old.
Read: your reasons make no logical sense first of all and are simply an unsupported (in reality at least) attack on what you view as a threat to your comfortable existence of fascist-styled "education".
Conclusion: your time is over, either adapt or get rolled over. It's obvious from the sense of desperation in your post that you, too, understand this. So why the charade?

While I agree with the original statement: online classes cant replace universities - as an actual academic I have much more valid reasons than you do (are you an actual academic? I find it very hard to believe from your post).

For example, just to give you some real, actual reasons:
1) Labwork: how will a physics student get access to physics labs and actually do the hands-on work needed to learn physics?
Universities will always exist for this reason alone: they are able to pool resources and be centers of RESEARCH and actual ACADEMIA.

2) Accreditation & Accountability: What you briefly - almost - touched on but fell a bit short and failed at was to analyze how universities (schools in general for that matter) bring accountability for people's learning AND teaching - both of which are incredibly important.
Likewise via that very accountability comes the true merit of accreditation.

Your reasons are actually meaningless to your original argument - in order - because:
1) It is already too easy to cheat in regular schools - and being online or not really doesnt change that at all.
Cheating, and likewise protecting against it (ie: policing) isnt the role of an institution of learning. The role of an institution of learning is to MAKE SURE ITS STUDENTS LEARN!
How can you call yourself an academic when you openly have no understanding of this?

2) Star students can shine even moreso using social media and global connectivity. The entire world can know of their status. Look at code-sharing sites like github and stackoverflow: those are still students, people are still on there to "learn how to code" just as much as teachers are there to teach how to code. Those who achieve the most are known around the world and their advice and participation is eagerly sought after.
Github is actually becoming the new CV. I dont want to look at a piece of paper when I hire an engineer - I want to see her/his work.
Just like artists, architects, and designers have used portfolios and examples of their work for decades (centuries?) to provide confirmation of their skills - now so too are engineers, writers, and yes - even economists like you claim to be: real ones have actual tangible evidence of their abilities. Not a CV.
Your view of how the working world works seems to be incredibly far behind the times...

3) This one made me laugh out loud - no really. Employers??? Have you ever employed anyone? I have built the teams behind 7 companies, selected participants for events, & hired employees for many NGO/NPOs. In these spaces throughout my life, I've hired roughly 300 people - and interviewed well over 4000. I'm not an HR person either. I'm a serial entrepreneur. Contrary to your very opinionated article: I actively EMPLOY people who DO think out of the box, who DO question authority, and who DO prove their skills and ability, and more importantly: teamwork ability OUTSIDE of the traditional model. Why? Because the traditional model produces factory workers.
I dont hire factory workers, and the future industry wont need to either as we are increasingly making technology to do all our automation.
Employers - that is, REAL ones, like me, actively look for people that do not conform to your fascist mentality of obedience. We build robots and automative tools for that.
Humans are not robots. Despite people like you who want to make them that, humans will always resist such work ethic and pressure to conform them.
Reistance is futile. You cannot win. Human potential will never be satisfied with repetition & structured trivialities.
The fact is that each generation is increasingly smarter than the last.
If you are aging, and arent tirelessly pushing yourself to learn and stay on top every day of your life - then your 20 year old students are much smarter than you, and you dont even have the slightest justification to be deciding what their lives should entail.
You should be listening to them. Engaging them. Stimulating them to help them learn - and guess what: you just might be surprised - because in teaching this way (which is now proven to be the most effective model of pedagogy, btw) you just might learn alot yourself.
So - about being an academic - Stop Lying.

4) This reason alone is the only argument you posed that actually holds valid for the reasons you mentioned, eg: PhD or masters thesis - how can a computer properly grade one? Even an essay or presentation should be given human attention, otherwise the grading (ie: feedback loop) mechanism isnt effective for the student. +1 there.
Though you understood the underlying issue of skilled-human necessity to evaluate other learning-human work, you still dont understand why.
This reason has nothing to do with online - or offline - education.
Online education can in fact automate and make the process of grading much more simple and easier for teachers. That is in fact a primary feature of well designed online learning platforms.
So you just lost this argument by fact of not understanding the actual argument.
Because you arent an academic. -1 there.

5) Wait - you are arguing that because students will buy dishwashers to free up their day TO STUDY MORE - it is a bad thing? That the "arms race" of students actively PUSHING themselves, and even SPENDING THEIR OWN POCKET MONEY to IMPROVE themselves is a bad thing?
Are you seriously going to continue pretending that you are an academic? Seriously???

Quite honestly if that is the view of you and your colleagues and your college/institution, then I will immediately make note of it and black list any student or prospective hire I ever see coming from your institution. Simply because of proximity to "teachers" as delusionally bent on fascist repression of progress and student potential as you have quite clearly explained that you are.

One brunt issue here is that you also failed to understand the underlying PURPOSE of the entire internet, and where online education is going.
Crediting students via online platforms is actually a whole lot easier than it is in the classroom.
Furthermore - online platforms provide so many bonuses - none of which we have discussed here (that completely overshadow in many regards anything that traditional institutions can provide); and we are ironically only arguing one side of the story, yet: you are still completely losing your own argument.

But let me just interject one facet of online learning platforms that a traditional school will never be able to match: *an increasing standard of global education*.
Thats right - online platforms reach people all around the world, continually providing content to a global audience who - on the right platforms also have a voice and ability to contribute to that content. This global collaboration is what is happening all over the world and has been for a long time - its what the internet is all about.
Are you going to actually proclaim that WIKIPEDIA is a BAD thing because it provides a platform for people to collaboratively SHARE KNOWLEDGE???

Because that is what you are in essence doing here.

Please dont call yourself an academic.
You are obviously more interested in your ivory tower position than the progress and potential of your students.
I feel deeply insulted by your ignorant and short-sighted post.