Succeeding in Online Advertising Education

Abstract

I received an unexpected reminder of the benefits of online education recently when the University of Florida (UF) required that all instructors move their classes online as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. This reaction to the health threat suggests several things about our university. First, the investment of extensive support for online students and faculty is paying dividends. Second, it is a confirmation that for most students, faculty, and staff, online education is no longer controversial. It was not always so. The move to create online programs did not really begin campus wide until the late 2000s. In its nascent stages, online delivery had passionate defenders and equally engaged opponents. I suspect that at many schools these same arguments play out today. My experience with online education began in my roles as associate dean for undergraduate affairs and as a director of the College of Journalism and Communications’ online master’s programs. In 2010 we were starting at ground zero because we had just a handful of online classes and no fully online undergraduates or grad students. Now, just 10 years later, over 600 undergraduates and an additional 200 master’s students take all their courses online. We have four undergraduate majors and seven graduate specializations