About 63 percent of chief academic officers consider the likes of massive open online courses, or MOOCS, to be critical to their institutions’ long-term strategies, down from 71 percent last year, the survey, by the Babson Survey Research Group, found.
Twenty-nine percent say the outcomes are inferior to those of face-to-face instruction, up from 26 percent the year before.
Nor are faculty growing more persuaded of the worth of online education. Only 29 percent of academic leaders say their faculty accept the “value and legitimacy” of online courses, a figure that has remained generally flat.