California Distance Education Report

Image via WikipediaThe Academic Affairs division of the California Community College's Chancellor's office came out with their latest Distance Education Report. They have been doing these every two years since 2002. It give the breakdown on how many students are taking DE classes, demographics, and learning mode. We stack up pretty well with how things are going nationally - California seems to be following national trends - the enrollments in DE are steadily increasing and this last year, there was a 5.96% drop in face-to-face enrollments and a 5.82% increase in online. Then there is that 10% gap between the success and completion rates that I have been chasing since I have been involved in distance ed. I think studies in distance education and interactivity have been addressing some of the issues.  There have been some breaks in that as well. The Instructional Technology Council released a report that said that "The gap between distance learning and face-to-face student completion rates has narrowed significantly, and individual campuses are reporting real progress in exceeding traditional completion rates."