Classroom experience, online convenience...and never the twain shall meet? The long-running fight continues: can an online degree compare with the traditional classroom route? Apparently, some people will never think so.

Today, there are programs that can create 'virtual science labs' online, allowing students to mix solutions and even dissect animals from the convenience of their computer desk. But is this to be praised, or scorned?

Now, however, a dispute with potentially far-reaching consequences has flared over how far the Internet can go in displacing the brick-and-mortar laboratory.

Prompted by skeptical university professors, the College Board, one of the most powerful organizations in American education, is questioning whether Internet-based laboratories are an acceptable substitute for the hands-on culturing of gels and peering through microscopes that have long been essential ingredients of American laboratory science.

John Watson, an education consultant who wrote a report last year documenting virtual education's growth, said online schools had faced lawsuits over financing and resistance by local school boards but nothing as daunting as the College Board.

"This challenge threatens the advance of online education at the national level in a way that I don't think there are precedents for," Watson said.

What 'side' are you on? Should there even be sides?