(openPR) - Online education is booming according to longtime online higher education pioneer, Dr. Fred DiUlus. As the founder and CEO of online university builder, Global Academy Online, he has witnessed first-hand the exponential growth of the online education industry. Traditional educators are just now beginning to seriously pull back the layers of opportunity that exist within the virtual world for today’s technologically savvy students.

Many traditionalists have complained over the years about what they perceive as the inadequacy of virtual education. They believe that somehow online education would destroy rigor and academic accomplishment if universities even dared to adopt online protocols in a major way. The father of modern management, the late Peter Drucker, predicted that schools as we know them will cease to exist in a generation replaced by their virtual counterparts.

Skeptics in higher education have long questioned Drucker’s ominous prediction. Global Academy Online’s own statistical research over the past eight years appears to bear out Drucker’s forecast contrary to what others in the field think and perhaps sooner than even Drucker expected. In 2002, the Academy began collecting statistical data from students attending traditional colleges and universities. The results of the eight-year survey are so startling that it now appears proof positive of the inevitability of Drucker’s prophecy.

The Academy asked students three simple questions. Did they believe online education was as good as traditional education? 24% say yes. Did they believe online education was better than traditional education? 67% say yes. And, did they believe online education was worse than traditional education? Just 8% say yes. The margin of error is plus or minus 5%.

DiUlus points out the statistics have remained relatively steadfast year in and year out. The Academy survey student satisfaction of 91% approval has not varied much except to show an increasing trend towards a belief that online education is in fact ‘better’. The results, DiUlus says are being influenced by the increasing use in online classes of social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and others.

And, he adds “Don’t be surprised if, in the not to distant future, you walk into a room and see someone watching a holographic image of his or her professor giving today’s latest lecture on a table top.”

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Global Academy Online, Inc., (the Academy), is an international online education university builder. The Academy is a premier provider of private label online education curriculum and instruction to colleges, universities, eLearning, and distance online education institutions on five continents. The Academy is the oldest continuous ratings publisher of the best and worst online schools for undergraduate and graduate students worldwide.

Global Academy Online, Inc.
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LaFonda Oliver-Bowen
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