C.W. Post School of Professional Accountancy
Offers Distance Learning Course
November 3, 1999 -- Graduate students in C.W. Post Professor
Stan Malaga's "Tax Research" course attend class when
and where they want to.
In fact, Professor Malaga's course is everywhere his students
want it to be - at home, at work and on the road. The only place
this distance learning course can't be found each week is the
classroom. Instead of making the trip to campus, students log
onto Blackboard.com to read lectures, take tests, pose questions
and chat with Malaga and fellow students. The course is the first
of what Malaga says he hopes will be many distance learning courses
offered at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in
Brookville, N.Y.
"The great advantage of courses like this is that you
don't have to be on campus to attend; you can be anywhere,"
says Malaga. "Another plus is the enormous amount of data
you can get into a course. You can, for example, link to other
web sites that provide information you can't get in the classroom."
Malaga and his 10 students met once at the beginning of the
semester; they will meet again for an online demonstration of
tax products and two final times to discuss their research projects.
The students, who all work full time, are required to log onto
the course site each week to read the most recent lecture. Malaga
features links to appropriate sites, such as the Internal Revenue
Service site (www.irs.gov), for information on tax codes, rulings
and regulations. Malaga makes up for classroom discussion by
posing questions in a chat room. Part of students' grades will
depend on their participation in these chats. They are not required
to spend a set amount of time online each week, but their grades
are contingent upon their participation. Each week students take
a non-credit quiz and receive immediate feedback on their answers.
Malaga developed this course while on sabbatical last year.
He sees great potential for other disciplines to offer distance
learning courses. "Some people have questioned the worth
of distance learning because of the lack of face time between
professor and students," said Malaga. "But it has been
my experience that I am better able to answer my students' questions
and address their various needs via e-mail. Even the quietest
students are empowered online. This breaks down many of the barriers
that we professors often encounter in the classroom."
C.W. Post's School of Professional Accountancy, the first
school of its kind in the country, is part of the College of
Management. For more information about this online course, contact
Professor Stan Malaga at (516) 232-1120 or cpas@mail.taxprofs.com
For more information call the C.W. Post
Public Relations Office at (516) 299-2333 or e-mail pr@cwpost.liu.edu or send
mail to: Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, 720 Northern
Blvd., Brookville, New York 11548-1300.
