In my understanding this distinction makes the degree essentially worthless.
Udacity and Georgia Tech are comparing the real master's and online master's as equivalent, but there hasn't been any evidence that employers or other universities (for PhD programs etc) would treat the online master's any better than a string of MOOC completions.
While usual bachelor and master degrees offer a "costly advertising" function, the lowered barriers should actually make the degree less attractive to employers. They could always hire self-taught engineers at a considerable discount if they wanted to.
This is a chicken and egg scenario though. By producing masters online grads into the world employers will encounter them and firm their own opinion on the quality of their education.
Yes, chicken and egg. But the chicken (students) are putting up the eggs (tuition). So I'm not extremely sceptical about the whole thing, but I consider it a very high risk for students eligible for an established master's program...
On second thought I just learned that the "online" prefix is abandoned now, so I am much more optimistic about the whole thing. And yes, it worries me that I would worry about a one word distinction...
Udacity and Georgia Tech are comparing the real master's and online master's as equivalent, but there hasn't been any evidence that employers or other universities (for PhD programs etc) would treat the online master's any better than a string of MOOC completions.
While usual bachelor and master degrees offer a "costly advertising" function, the lowered barriers should actually make the degree less attractive to employers. They could always hire self-taught engineers at a considerable discount if they wanted to.