Once again, the issue of lack of 'authenticity' with online courses was raised at a recent workshop in Sydney when it was revealed that a dog had been issued with a construction safety White Card.
While this raises all sorts of issues the one most obvious is the lack of checking of identification at the start, during and at the end of the course.
While these practices continue, it is easy to see why some lack confidence in this mode of training. This is unfair but understandable. There are great providers of online training who utilise extremely robust procedures to ensure authenticity but it is up to these providers to ensure that they spread the word to ensure continued confidence with online training.
Authenticity is critical with online training, but no more critical than validity. As Mike mentioned in a previous blog, there are plenty platforms with extremely poor security methodologies. The point being here, who really cares if we know that it really was a person who completed a course if the course could easily be cheated or completed in a matter of minutes.