Some universities offer online courses as an alternative to classes delivered on campus. Do you think this is a positive or negative development? v.1

Despite the fact that a proportion of people negate the benefits of distance learning, especially due to the risk of alienation as a result of the lack of face-to-face contact, I would insist that offering online courses has a definite positive effect on the student community. Flexibility at the course structure is the main benefit which occurs by the implementation of new technologies in the traditional teaching scheme. More and more people choose to follow an undergraduate or even a postgraduate course in order to chase a better career or a higher income. It is more than clear that synchronizing this large number of population is a really demanding task and is restricted even more by the limited size of the universities’ infrastructure. So, exploiting the widespread use of the Internet in order to control this ever-increasing number of students seems an ideal option. Moreover, taking an online course has a positive impact on the social and economic life of the stakeholders. Many of them live far away from the university they wish to study and at most of the cases they cannot afford either the relocation expenses or the daily cost of living in a new area. In addition, there are plenty of people who work in parallel with their studies and they struggle to keep the balance between the working hours and the lectures time, because usually both of them take part during the morning hours. As a result, the potential of attending courses at a different time and at any place is not only convenient, but also economically beneficial. To conclude, I believe that online courses can provide students with an equally high level of education as the traditional teaching and expand far beyond the limits of learning.