Online courses (and collaboration) to save energy, money, and environment

I've seen some recent news about the huge rise in enrollment in online college classes concurrent with the rise in gasoline prices. The articles report students saying that rising gas prices are a big concern in their deciding to seek online courses.

I think this shows the coming together of a few trends - a "perfect storm" of the increased quality of online course software in the past few years, increasing online curriculum offerings - more courses offered by a widening array of reputable schools, peoples' increasing comfort in using online collaboration tools, and the dramatic rise in gasoline prices of the past year.

As in education, I think we'll see businesses, governments, and other non-commercial organizations increase their usage of online tools for collaboration to save travel costs, and also to seek to reduce the climate change impacts of business operations. More on that another time...

Some interesting quotes about online courses:

At Villanova University, the engineering school has seen a 40 percent increase in online enrollment this summer — even though summer enrollments typically stay flat.

"We've attributed it to the huge gas prices," said Sean O'Donnell, who runs the engineering school's distance-education program. Associated Press.

In the NYT:

At Bristol Community College in Fall River, Mass., for instance, online enrollments were up 114 percent this summer over last, and half the students queried cited gas costs or some other transportation obstacle as a reason for signing up to study over the Internet, said April Bellafiore, an assistant dean there.

“Online classes filled up immediately,” Ms. Bellafiore said. “It blew my mind.” New York Times.

And in the Chronicle: 

I would prefer to actually go to school and be there to do it," says Ms. LaBadie, a single mother working toward a degree in medical administration. "But it's hard enough paying tuition, much less the price of gas. Chronicle of Higher Education.