Internet class offerings on rise at Nevada colleges

Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2000 | 8:48 a.m.

"People who have to work or have a family or have other commitments aren't tied into getting to class at 4 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday," said Kerri Garcia, who's in charge of UNR's online education program.

Classes by computer started in 1998. Since then, UNR's online courses have increased steadily, with 22 on the latest list.

"It's grown rapidly over the last two years," said Garcia, director of independent study. "We're trying to add 10 to 15 courses at a (time)."

Starting this month, UNR will add 10 Basque studies courses to its online offerings in the next two years.

The class-by-computer trend is similar at the area's two-year colleges.

Truckee Meadows Community College offers about 20 online courses and Carson City-based Western Nevada Community College will have 14 for the spring semester.

Many of northern Nevada's college students are what campus officials call "non-traditional." They're older, with full-time jobs and families.

For them, going to on-campus classes can be difficult. It's easier to take English, psychology, history or a variety of other subjects from the living room couch or kitchen table.

"That's the whole point of most of the online classes," TMCC spokeswoman Paula Lee Hobson said.

Most Internet classes at TMCC and all the ones at UNR are what administrators call "open-ended." Students can enroll by computer at any time and do the course work when it's convenient. Most on-line classes at Western Nevada follow a regular semester schedule.

At UNR, Neal Ferguson is associate vice president and dean of the College of Extended Studies. He also teaches British history on the Internet.

Ferguson has 30 students in his British History 393 and 394 classes. With his students enrolling at different times, Ferguson is a tutor for 30 people rather than a teacher for one class. Ferguson and his students correspond by e-mail.

"It involves them reading off-line, regular textbooks, then getting on line and giving me the results of what they've been thinking about," Ferguson said. "They write me e-mail messages in response to a bunch of essay questions I propose."

Along with questions, Ferguson e-mails his lectures, with the written word replacing the spoken word.

"These are designed for people who can't come to campus easily," Ferguson said. "They have children. They have jobs."