The biggest reason for choosing an online course as an alternative – or supplementary – to classroom education is the fact that learners (i.e. students) don’t have to go to where the education is being provided. The education comes to them. All they need is an internet connection on their favourite digital device (e.g. laptop, tab, mobile phone, etc.) and registered access to the course they are enrolled in. In short, with online learning, the burden of going to study in a school, college or university is entirely removed from the minds of the learners.
Learners can even enroll in courses offered by institutes, universities and training organisations located outside their city or country of residence. This is a huge boon for learners as their options for courses, programmes, certificates and degrees are now in abundance. They can enroll in any of these courses from the comfort of their homes or anywhere else they happen to be. For instance, Coursera, one of the largest online education providers, states that almost 25 per cent of their more than 100 million registered learners access their courses from mobile phones wherever they are.
Thousands of courses on online platforms
This opens up lots of opportunities for learners: e.g. women in certain cultures who cannot step out of their homes to study; or working professionals and housewives who face constraints in scheduling time for studying for a degree at a university; or children and those with disabilities who are unable to travel long distances to a school, college or university. This has attracted people from diverse ages, cultures and backgrounds to online learning; who, otherwise, may not have considered pursuing their studies. To make things easier for non-English-speaking learners, many online courses offer multiple language options through video subtitles for the lectures.
Today, there are thousands of courses available to study on online platforms (e.g. Coursera: 5,000+ courses; edX: 3,500+ courses; FutureLearn: 1,100+ courses), with more courses being created and launched every year. The variety of these online courses is astounding! Courses on data science and business management may be popular with many online learners, but for those with curious minds and diverse interests, courses are available on subjects as varied and fun as e-gaming, wine tasting, dark energy and the universe, comic book making, dog psychology, insect-human interactions, osteoarchaeology, and other ‘interesting’ subjects.
So, a learner can reinforce his college engineering degree with an online business management qualification to move up the ranks in his organisation; as a working banking professional, a learner can take up an online course on data science and change her career trajectory to fintech; as a teenager, a learner can study comic book making online to build a weekend hobby. Learners can be of any age, gender or nationality, and they can take up any course online on an online course platform as long as they meet the course enrolment criteria and fulfill the course fees.
Learners can set their own pace of learning
Many online courses are available for free as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for the sheer pleasure of learning. Learners may find similar courses on a specific subject offered by multiple online course platforms, universities or training organisations indicating the course duration (no. of hours or weeks), course start date, and other course-related information, including reviews and ratings by other past learners of that course. Apart from increasing the course options on a specific subject for learners, this information helps online learners choose what they think is the right course for them and create their own learning schedule.
Online courses also allow learners to set their own pace of learning during a course. Learners are able to repeat the course modules until they have mastered the learning, or after having done so, they can quicken the pace and complete the course before the suggested duration of the course (i.e. the time frame indicated by the course provider for completion of modules and the course). What’s more, since there is no restriction on the number of courses that an individual learner can take, a learner can enroll in multiple courses one after another or even enroll in them simultaneously and collect his or her certificates, diplomas and degrees.
