A friend of mine received her online MLS degree a few months ago. After job searching for a few very frustrating months, she asked me whether she should mention that her MLS degree was an online degree on her resume. Frankly speaking, I have no answers. As soon as it is an ALA accredited program, I don't think there is any different between the online and the cmpus-based MLS degrees for the hiring employer. Talking about long distance learning students, there are disadvantages of being an online student.
The challenges are varied - here are some examples:
(1) some "technology-intensive courses particularly with lab, equipment" might not be available to students not on-campus. I still remembered that I had spent hours and hours at the library school lab to work on my assignments. There are things that you cannot work at home, for instance OCLC cataloging and DIALOG databases exercises - those exercises need to be done on campus library lab only.
(2) books for assignments might be very difficult to locate.
(3) lack of personal interaction with your classmates and professors.
My BIGGEST concern of the online program is the academic fraud. So how the unviersity and professors verify who the person is and that person is ACTUALLY doing the work? - I have witnessed a co-worker who is working her online PhD degree in education. One day I ran into her office and noticed that one of her assistants is editing her citations! I am so surprised, no actually I am very disappointed. I am disappointed because it happens under the roof of a higher education institution; I am disappointed because someone misused her "authorization." - Oh well ...
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