This book’s objective is to explore online education’s optimal design and management, so that more students, especially those traditionally underserved (e.g. low income, minority, LGBTQ, immigrant, non-traditional, rural, GED-holding, first generation college students), are successful. Additionally, we are interested in its socioeconomic, diversity and political impacts, and vice versa, political and regulatory impacts on online education. These implications involve individuals, organizations, and governments, and combinations of these. Several journals focus on STEM, higher education, and online courses/programs, but few cover a full range of topics like a curated anthology of recent articles. In addition, granular research is scarce on specific online education demographic groups (e.g., military students, dual enrollment students, minority students, rural students, students with GEDs, first-generation college students, ...), and a call for chapters specifically focusing on some of these less-studied demographic groups can accelerate research and build knowledge regarding their success factors in online degree programs. University administrators and anyone else interested in student retention; government policy writers; and politicians interested in income inequality, promoting social mobility and democracy through accessible public education would find this a useful resource. Additionally, there is a large EdTech industry including Code Academy, MOOC providers, LMS providers, personalized learning platforms, as well as employers and traditional publishers that are getting into online and personalized education. Leaders in these audiences would be interested in the empirical best-practices research presented in the book. We are hoping that this collection will inform policy and practice. Deadlines for abstract submission may be pushed back to August.
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