Is DE Right For Me?

Distance Education is very different than a tradition face-to-face experience with your instructor and classmates. Many equate distance education with the correspondence course, where students worked at their own pace, completed assignments, and sent the assignments back without much pressure with regards to time. Since then, distance education has grown and changed to include not only the traditional correspondence course, but courses delivered online, classes taken via videoconference, and instruction provided through a mix of online and on-campus activities.

How Distance Education at Ivy Tech Works

Ivy Tech Community College offers distance education in three formats. Our online format is taught using the Blackboard Academic Suite. In Blackboard, students can download their course syllabus, calendar, and any readings available in electronic format. Students may also submit assignments, take exams, and engage in course discussions. This is the most popular format of distance learning at Ivy Tech.

The videoconference format (also known as two-way video) are courses delivered live one or more times per week. These courses are live and must be viewed at an Ivy Tech campus (or other location that may support videoconferencing). Students viewing a course at Lafayette may have an instructor in Bloomington, Indianapolis, Muncie, or other location statewide. Videoconference classes do allow for live verbal course discussions between the instructor and students, and students may converse with the instructor and other students.

The online+face-to-face format (also called hybrid) is a mix of Distance Education and on-campus classes. Students may complete assignments and course discussions online, but come to campus on a regular basis to complete lab assignments.

How Courses are Run

Distance education classes at Ivy Tech are not open enrollment classes, meaning that students can enroll in online classes at any time. Students must enroll for specific classes during the enrollment period for the specific term. In addition, all Ivy Tech classes have an 8-week, 10-week, or 16-week term, with assignments, quizzes, and exams due at specific times. Ivy Tech does not offer self-paced courses for academic credit.

All distance education courses may require students to take proctored exams at a testing center. All Ivy Tech campuses offer testing centers. In addition, many libraries, high schools, and other colleges will provide test proctoring services. Military and for-profit learning centers (such as Sylvan or Huntington) also provide testing services to students. In all cases, students are responsible for arranging their exams according to the directions provided by their instructor and their desired testing center.

Technical and Personal Skills Needed

Students should consider their reasons for wanting to take a distance education course very carefully. Individuals with certain skills and traits will succeed at Distance Education courses, where those who do not have those same skills and traits may struggle.

To help you determine if DE is right for you, consider taking the Learning Skills and Technical Skills assessments provided by Ivy Tech. These short assessments can help give you an idea if you have some of the ideal skills and traits for distance education.

Ivy Tech also provides a one credit hour life skills course, IVY 109, that is geared for students wanting to take online courses. Students new to online courses who would like to take a majority of their classes online should consider taking this course if a life skills course is required for their major.

Distance Education does require a certain level of technical skill. In all cases, students will be expected to use the Blackboard learning system. Students should know how to use the Internet, send electronic mail, upload files to the Internet, use a chat room, create electronic documents, post on discussion forums, and more. Ivy Tech publishes a list of minimum and recommended system requirements for students taking Internet classes.

If you wish to discuss your personal skill sets and if they would work well for distance education, it is highly recommended that you make an appointment to speak to your academic advisor.

Transfer

If you intend to transfer to a four year school after you finish your education at Ivy Tech, you may wish to speak to your advisor or a transfer counselor prior to registering for any distance education class. Some institutions will readily accept credit for a section of a course that is taught on campus, but will decline to accept any credit for a different section of that same course that is taught online. You should be aware of the restrictions that the institution you want to transfer to places on credit acceptance.