Key Challenges of On-line Education in Multi-cultural Context

In meeting the ever-growing educational needs of culturally diverse student populations, universities and colleges still seek to maintain high quality standards, both for in situ and online education. Despite the latter's reportedly high effectiveness potential, online degree courses tend to have low students' persistence and satisfaction rates.In this pape,r we examine the role that students' and instructors' national cultures play in the way individuals learn at a distance. We argue that students' individual culture dimensions may prove influential in achieving overall learning outcomes. The key complexities for students involve understanding the instructor's role in a socio-constructivist approach, adapting online collaborative learning and acquiring academic skills. These can become crucial barriers to effective online learning. No less a challenge is presented by online distance education for instructors. Academic institutions' managements have high expectations in terms of utilizing up-to-date teaching techniques, enhancing competitive edge and maximizing cost-effectiveness. Thus, the teaching staff is expected to play an increasingly essential role in the new environment. We conclude that instructors have to develop strategies to motivate, support and counsel students with the aim of facilitating the students' on-line learning experience. This implies that teaching staff have to acquire new skills and competences vital for multicultural online education.Robert Kennedy College, whose experience is reflected in this paper, shares much of the issues of other institutions aiming to utilize distance online learning, but has the advantage that it was set up from the start as an online institution