What Makes a Great Online College Faculty?

With online education growing in leaps and bounds, it is important to consider the type of faculty running each school, behind the scenes. Looking into how some colleges go about this, and more importantly, how the faculty members interact with both their students, peers and their schools, presents us with some very interesting information, indeed. It is known that online professors have normally been teaching college for at least 5-10 years on physical campuses, prior to teaching at an online campus. Although this trend might change, with more online campuses sprouting up, for the moment it's good, since both the professors and their students seem to be equally new to the online college scene, at least for the moment. Any "seasoned pro" that you know of have still not been attending college online for all that long, neither professor nor student. Distant learning has been in place for awhile, but online college is different, for the most part.  The faculties of today's online campuses face challenges like not knowing whether or not a student is really working on his or her work, are ready for an exam, are doing what is needed in order to pass a course. Discussion boards can measure success to a degree, but this does require a student to participate in the discussion; a feat that some may not be able to perform, or at least would need to get used to doing. Professors who teach online typically get together in meetings of their own, to both improve the quality of learning for the students, the means and methods by which they are attending school, and other delights. An IT group will normally work with the professors, who get quite a bit of feedback from their students about how the system is working for them, including their personal websites that they both obtain information about classes from, interact with email. Calendar events, and see "live" progress, specifically when it comes time to earn some credits. Today's online college professors have a few more challenges than some, and not as much as most, all things considered.  Once a professor has been teaching for awhile, he or she will be able to move within the college system to teach different classes, should opportunities arise. A really great thing is improving upon one's own education, since teaching at a college can afford such a luxury.  One way they stay in touch with each other, with regard to specific students, is through either email or chat.  Every online school has some kind of chat put into place, in addition to email. This makes things easy, as far as communication goes. Challenges aside, professors have it pretty good, all things considered; especially when it comes to online education.  If you are a college professor, teaching at a physical campus, you might consider a career teaching students online. It's a whole different ballgame, but very rewarding, according to most people who work in this kind of position; well worth it.