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SOS capt. courses available online in 2009

Captains still can’t play flickerball online — yet. But the Air Force will roll out new online Squadron Officer School correspondence courses next year in a step toward revamping a professional military education program that could eventually award master’s degrees to captains.

While a game of virtual flickerball — the soccer/basketball hybrid played during the SOS residence course — is a stretch, captains will be able to take SOS with all the trappings associated with Internet classes offered by universities outside the military.

Officials plan to establish interactive online courses advanced enough to award graduate credits. Long-term goals include having captains earning master’s degrees, but Air University leaders admit those goals are still far off.

In between Air and Space Basic Course and SOS, Air University officials want to add 10 more online courses to “provide a continuum of learning” taken before and after SOS, said Lt. Col. Kenneth Shugart, vice dean of academic affairs at SOS.

Subjects for these 11-week courses will include commanding a flight, national defense organizations and process, organizational leadership, and 21st century warfare.

If a captain completes these new courses along with the SOS online interactive correspondence class, he could earn a master’s degree, Shugart said.

Before that, though, Air University officials need its online courses accredited by the Southern Association for Colleges and Schools.

Before they can be accredited, the Air Force must “ensure the classes on the Internet are of equal value to those given [at Maxwell] before they can be accredited,” said Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association for Colleges and Schools.

At press time, about 9,000 captains were taking SOS by correspondence. It’s a years-old program that allows a captain to complete the reading assignments and tests at their own pace within 18 months.

Those taking SOS by correspondence now will not have to start over and will complete the course with the version they started.

Starting in April, though, captains will have a choice between two online SOS correspondence courses.

Air University officials first plan on unveiling the updated, self-paced online course called Course 20 in January with a new curriculum.

The more interactive online SOS correspondence class called Course 21 — the one Air University officials are trying to get accredited and work into a master’s degree program — won’t be available to captains until April.

Students will first see changes in software from the more dated advanced distance learning system to Blackboard, used by many civilian universities and soon by both online SOS correspondence courses.

Focus groups to test courses

The Air University will test the two new correspondence courses in November using focus groups of officers at Maxwell that will take a hybrid of the self-paced and interactive classes.

Air University officials admit the interactive course that will take 20 weeks to complete will be more strenuous, but they expect captains to be attracted to it if they can earn graduate school credits.

Air Force officials don’t expect to have completed the accreditation process by April, but Shugart said he is confident captains can earn up to four graduate credits.

The interactive course will feature writing assignments, online discussions between students and instructors, videos, and taped lectures along with reading assignments and tests.

Captains could even incorporate things they do on the job into the course, said Norm Wagner, a professor working at the Squadron Officer College.

The course will not require captains to meet, or login, at scheduled times.

Officials haven’t decided yet who will teach the interactive course, but they are considering contracting that out, much as the Air Command and Staff College does for interactive online classes.

Officials are not worried about running out of slots too soon, as they expect more captains to choose the less rigorous self-paced course at first.

But once the course is accredited, officials expect demand to rise and to expand capacity.

Shugart said it was still too early to tell if captains who completed the interactive course will be looked upon more favorably for major — just as captains who complete SOS in-residence now have a leg up over captains who do it only by correspondence.

Promotion boards and graduate credits aside, Capt. Stephen Yantko, Program manager of the company grade officer leadership program, said he expects captains will want to take the interactive online course simply because it’s a more engaging way to learn.

“Once they see what they can get from it, they will realize I get more from the instructor-led course and I get better educated by it, and that’s why I want to take it,” Yantko said.