In the era of Covid-19 the dependency of the students on the online degree programs has taken manifold significance. Considerable numbers of students studying in various fields have started taking resort on the online educational institutions for earning an effective degree. For students pursuing management and business studies online the case remains the same. The students before enrolling them to online business degree programs are required to validate the credibility of the same. Over the years large numbers of online business courses has emerged on the scene. The student thereby has to check the legitimacy of the business or management programs offered by the management institutions before getting registered. The legitimate management or business institutions contribute in generating quality programs that are accredited by professional councils and boards. The students by getting enrolled to such programs earn value for the amount rendered. However, the mushrooming of management or business institutions has led to the emergence of degree mills that fail to provide quality education for the fees charged. They thus tend to amount to student debt in terms of offering them useless degrees.
The credibility of the online business degree offered in by the management or business educational institutions can be evaluated based on considering the parameters like accreditation of the program, reputation of the education institution and also quality of the instruction offered.
Regarding accreditation, it is observed that the best online business schools have institutional accreditation while some other schools provide business programs that are accredited in nature. In the Indian context the management schools and the programs offered in by them are required to be accredited by the All India Council of Technical Education or AICTE.
The credibility of the business institutions can also be learnt from the degree of reputation earned by the school regards to its competitors in the target market. It is held that the business or management programs offered in by the reputed business schools are credible in nature. On the contrary, a business institution that has suddenly grown up overnight suffers from lack of needed recognition and reputation. The credibility of the business programs and thereby the online business degree offered in by these unrecognised business institutions becomes highly questionable which in turn happen to make the student suffer from loss of educational value.
The credibility of the business or management programs and the educational institutions offering such is also evaluated based on the existence of quality mentors that offer the right kind of instruction and study materials. For the online business degree programs the mentors or instructors are not only required to have needed qualifications but also needed teaching experiences in teaching in a virtual setting in both synchronous and asynchronous manner. The professors involved in online teaching also are required to undergo special training classes for gaining needed expertise in teaching in a virtual environment.
The management educational institutions focusing on enhancing the credibility of the educational programs need to gain quality feedbacks from the students and other stakeholders. Incorporation of such feedbacks would help in customising the educational programs and the manner of their delivery for meeting the diversified needs of the students. Thus, inferences gained based on parameters like accreditation status of the programs and the institution, recognition of the institution and also the instructional quality will help in rightly judging the credibility of the online business degree offered.