Getting the Bugs out of the Distance Learning Experience

As online courses have become more of an alternative to the traditional classroom environment there's a need for exploring methods on how to evaluate these online courses and their learning objectives. The intent of this research paper is to determine how we can improve online student grades so that failure rates are not 100% higher when comparing them to students attending a traditional campus course and also reduce the rate of late assignments and dropouts. This writer will identify the causes of these three areas and look at various methodologies and evaluation processes to rectify the situation. This writer will use surveys, course evaluations and quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection to determine the causes and recommend changes. (Contains 5 figures.)