tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/future-of-higher-education-4003/articlesFuture of Higher Education – The Conversation2021-06-28T12:18:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1622252021-06-28T12:18:52Z2021-06-28T12:18:52ZCollege can still be rigorous without a lot of homework<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407509/original/file-20210621-35715-16btbsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5751%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Completing hefty reading and writing assignments can pose an unnecessary burden on students who must work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/diverse-students-are-interested-in-guest-lecturers-royalty-free-image/1216637044?adppopup=true">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How hard should it be to earn a college degree? </p>
<p>When the book “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10327226.html">Academically Adrift</a>” appeared in 2011, it generated <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/academically-adrift">widespread concern</a> that college was not effectively educating students and preparing them for today’s world. Among other things, authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa claimed that most colleges were not rigorous or demanding, in part because college students were not reading and writing enough in order to build their critical thinking skills. But is it really how much work students are assigned that makes college rigorous and helps them learn?</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vGfxmwgAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of higher education</a>, I have taken a close look at college students’ academic experiences and outcomes for several years. Some people define rigor as how many pages a student reads or how many pages a student writes. But in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1920825">a 2021 peer-reviewed study that I published</a> with colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Yp_l61UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">John Braxton</a> and <a href="https://education.uiowa.edu/person/ernest-pascarella">Ernie Pascarella</a>, I found that if they do that, they might miss key elements of what it takes to help students develop critical thinking skills and become lifelong learners. They also might create an unnecessary burden for students who have other demands on their time.</p>
<h2>What is rigor?</h2>
<p>In education, academic rigor tends to be defined in <a href="https://www.edglossary.org/rigor/">two different ways</a>: as a workload that is demanding and difficult or as learning experiences that challenge and support students to think more deeply. </p>
<p>Given the importance of critical thinking, the way rigor is defined makes a big difference in terms of the ways that the general public – as well as administrators, policymakers, journalists and researchers – assess if a college is rigorous. It also makes a difference in terms of faculties’ expectations for students, the types of classroom activities they use and the assignments they give. </p>
<p>In other words, if rigor means workload, then students who spend a lot of time studying should become better critical thinkers. In contrast, if rigor means academic challenge, then students who practice <a href="https://tophat.com/glossary/h/high-order-thinking-skills/">higher-order thinking skills, such as analysis and evaluation</a>, during class, on assignments and during exams should become better critical thinkers. </p>
<p>That’s why my study examines each definition of rigor – workload and academic challenge – in terms of helping students develop critical thinking skills. The study also looks at those definitions of rigor in relation to two related dimensions of lifelong learning. One is reading and writing for pleasure, and the other is the habit of thinking deeply and critically about things.</p>
<h2>The college difference</h2>
<p>The study included about 2,800 students who attended one of 46 four-year colleges in the U.S. between 2006 and 2012. These students took part in the <a href="https://centerofinquiry.org/wabash-national-study-of-liberal-arts-education/">Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education</a>, which was a large, longitudinal study of how college experiences affected outcomes associated with a liberal arts education. They completed surveys and tests at three different points during college: at the beginning of their first year, at the end of their first year and at the end of their fourth year.</p>
<p>In these surveys, students reported their course workload, including how many books they read, pages they wrote and hours they spent studying for class. They also reported how much their courses challenged them to engage in higher-order thinking. Faculty ask students to practice higher-order thinking when they ask challenging questions in class and give assignments that ask students to analyze information or form an argument. </p>
<p>Since the Wabash National Study measured students’ critical thinking and lifelong learning skills at multiple timepoints, my study looked at how much students developed these skills in relation to their workload and the academic challenge of their classes. Of course, students who are motivated to get good grades may be more likely to develop these skills. And lots of other college experiences, like interacting with faculty outside of class or being in an honors program, might also make a difference. My study accounts for these factors in order to better understand the unique influence of each definition of rigor. </p>
<h2>What matters</h2>
<p>Here’s what we found. </p>
<p>In the first year of college, higher-order thinking was related to an increase in both dimensions of lifelong learning: reading and writing for pleasure and the tendency to think deeply. Higher-order thinking was not related to development of critical thinking skills. Workload was not related to students’ critical thinking or either dimension of lifelong learning.</p>
<p>Across four years of college, higher-order thinking was related to an increase in students’ critical thinking skills and both dimensions of lifelong learning. Workload was related to only one dimension of lifelong learning: reading and writing for pleasure. This relationship was driven primarily by the amount of reading students did, rather than the amount of writing they did or the amount of time they spent studying.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, my study suggests that students learn important critical thinking and lifelong learning skills because of challenging class experiences regardless of the workload. In other words, college can help students be better critical thinkers and lifelong learners without requiring them to spend a lot of time studying.</p>
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<h2>Implications for colleges</h2>
<p>This study has implications for how courses and colleges are assessed as being rigorous. It also has implications for how faculty teach, as it suggests that they should create courses that engage students in higher-order thinking, rather than asking them to complete long reading and writing assignments.</p>
<p>These implications matter particularly for students from low-income backgrounds, who are <a href="https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Low-Income-Working-Learners-FR.pdf">more likely to work full-time</a> during college. Low-income students are also <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203810163-21/engaging-low-income-students-adrianna-kezar-marybeth-walpole-laura-perna">more likely to commute to campus and have family responsibilities</a>. </p>
<p>Because of these responsibilities, students from low-income backgrounds often have less time to dedicate to homework compared to students from wealthier backgrounds who live on campus and who don’t work as many hours. This creates an <a href="https://www.edglossary.org/opportunity-gap/">opportunity gap</a> in students’ ability to be successful. A <a href="http://pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Indicators_of_Higher_Education_Equity_in_the_US_2018_Historical_Trend_Report.pdf">2018 report from the Pell Institute</a> shows that low-income students graduate at much lower rates than students from higher-income backgrounds. </p>
<p>If campuses want students from low-income backgrounds to graduate at the same rate as their peers, then it is important that these students have a reasonable workload in their courses so that they don’t have to choose between college and their other responsibilities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>KC Culver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Higher education in the US has been faulted for not requiring students to read and write enough. But is that criticism justified? New research raises doubts.KC Culver, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207222019-08-16T12:53:13Z2019-08-16T12:53:13ZFree college proposals should include private colleges<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288077/original/file-20190814-136180-1ihzx3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Private college students graduate at higher rates, government statistics show.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multiracial-students-walking-university-hall-during-685407808?src=7JOvhcaapQ_gLo_vpODSlg-1-0">4 PM production/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Students can use federal financial aid to attend any college they want, whether public or private. </p>
<p>But the <a href="https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/high_school_and_beyond/2019/05/4_things_you_need_to_know_about_free_college_proposals.html">“free college” proposals</a> floated by some 2020 presidential candidates would increase federal funding only for community colleges or state-run universities. Private nonprofit universities would be excluded.</p>
<p>The question is: Why? </p>
<p>From my vantage point as scholar of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m2X4SScAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">economics of higher education</a>, I see a few factors at play.</p>
<h2>A question of resources</h2>
<p>One is cost. It would be easier to fulfill campaign promises to make higher education “free” by covering only public institutions, which tend to charge lower tuition and to spend less educating each of their students. </p>
<p>But cost and quality tend to go together, and this relationship holds true for higher education.</p>
<p>One way to measure quality is whether students complete their studies as planned. <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_326.10.asp?referer=raceindicators">Four-year completion rates</a> at public institutions trail those at private non-profits by as much as 20% for students of the same race and sex. </p>
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<p>Colleges and universities with more funding and higher tuition – typically private institutions – not only graduate students faster, but their graduates go on to earn <a href="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/dalekrueger_More_Selective_College.pdf">higher salaries</a> than their peers who graduate from less well-funded colleges, after accounting for differences in student characteristics and selectivity. Several <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/146304">studies</a> have come to <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3804/aff8877f9cc4c3082c855ca4e92e2645a915.pdf">similar conclusions</a>: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/505067">Educational resources affect earnings</a>.</p>
<p>Since students at public colleges graduate at lower rates and earn lower salaries, they tend to default on their student loans <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/defaultmanagement/schooltyperates.pdf">more often</a> than those who went to private nonprofit colleges. By making federal money available to both public and private colleges, it could lead to fewer students defaulting.</p>
<h2>Quality and spending</h2>
<p>Ideally, federal funds provided by “free college” initiatives would boost quality at colleges and universities. But covering tuition at only public institutions won’t increase the quality of education at these schools unless it means the schools have more money to spend.</p>
<p>Poorer outcomes at public institutions can be <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-005-9388-y">explained</a> by lower spending. For example, during the 2015-2016 school year, four-year <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_334.10.asp">public institutions</a> spent about US$12,000 less than four-year <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_334.30.asp">private nonprofits</a> per student per year. Two-year public colleges invest dramatically less.</p>
<p>But the resource problems at colleges won’t get better if federal money merely pays the same tuition that students are paying now. Many state governments <a href="https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/mhec_affordability_series3_20170824.pdf">prohibit</a> state colleges and universities from increasing tuition, even as states have <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_333.10.asp">cut the amount of money they spend per student</a>. Tuition caps would prevent public colleges from obtaining the additional resources they need to improve quality.</p>
<p>These price ceilings worsen problems such as <a href="https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/student-staff-ratio-in-postsecondary-institutions-over-time">high student-to-faculty ratios</a>, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/faculty-pay-survey_n_3038924">low instructor pay</a> and <a href="https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_512HJRB.pdf">restricted course offerings</a>. They also mean schools must <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vDBYPxvidhUJ:https://www.chronicle.com/article/More-Public-Universities-Cap/142873+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">turn away qualified students</a> and allow facilities and equipment to fall into <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0Dasw2dBjOIJ:https://www.chronicle.com/article/No-One-Likes-to-Talk-About/242046+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">disrepair</a>.</p>
<p>Without tuition caps, price would still be limited by market competition. Private nonprofits compete with each other for students and offer education across a range of prices and quality levels.</p>
<p>Some free college proposals call for tying federal funding to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2598/text">state matching funds</a>. One prominent example is the Debt-Free College Act of 2018, which is cosponsored by <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2598/cosponsors">several presidential candidates</a> – Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten E. Gillibrand. But demanding more state funding could backfire. Some state governments might turn down federal funding for higher education if it <a href="https://www.apnews.com/8fbf0ba4b11a4c45b1344bdbbe3c94d9">requires states to spend more</a>. The same thing happened when many states turned down <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/">Medicaid expansion</a>.</p>
<p>Many students won’t attend college unless it is close to home, or is in a city where they hope to settle. Restricting these students to public institutions would limit their choice of academic programs and quality. For example, in <a href="http://bit.ly/2ixsOky">some parts of the country</a>, only private institutions offer programs like business economics or electromechanical engineering. Including private institutions would mean a wider range of choices.</p>
<h2>How it could work</h2>
<p>What could a federal subsidy look like that would empower students to choose the college they believe is best for them?</p>
<p>One option would be a voucher that would fund costs at a school of the student’s choice. For instance, a voucher could cover between 30% and 80% of tuition, fees, books and reasonable living expenses at any accredited public or nonprofit college or university.</p>
<p>Investing more public dollars in higher education boosts income and employment, which leads to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2551567">more tax revenue</a>, which benefits the general public. </p>
<p>Some candidates have called for <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/23/18714615/bernie-sanders-free-college-for-all-2020-student-loan-debt">“means-testing”</a> public funding for higher education. Means-tested funds are only made available to those who can prove they fall below a certain income or wealth threshold.</p>
<p>But public investments in education do not have to be limited to the poor to help the poor. Programs that only benefit the poor are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mimi_Abramovitz/publication/11669976_Everyone_Is_Still_on_Welfare_The_Role_of_Redistribution_in_Social_Policy/links/00b7d5145ca8e2220c000000.pdf">more prone to budget cuts</a> than more universal programs. </p>
<p>Including private nonprofit institutions in affordability programs – or “free college” proposals – will benefit middle-income and poor students. Many private nonprofit institutions <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w18586">seek to include and assist</a> qualified students from less privileged backgrounds. Indeed, some of the most selective institutions – and typically the best funded – have been among <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43821938">the most generous</a> with respect to assisting students with financial need. With more government support, private institutions could more easily educate more of these students.</p>
<p>Some might argue that making education funding available to private institutions would divert funding from public universities. But respecting student choice might make these programs more popular and build broader political support for increased funding for higher education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Simkovic is a Professor of Law and Accounting at the University of Southern California.</span></em></p>The ‘free college’ proposals being floated by 2020 presidential candidates don’t include private colleges. A higher education scholar asks why, especially since privates have higher graduation rates.Michael Simkovic, Professor of Law and Accounting, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976692018-08-23T10:43:40Z2018-08-23T10:43:40ZCould college textbooks soon get cheaper?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232518/original/file-20180817-165952-nyau1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Just as the printing press made books more affordable, technology could do the same thing for college textbooks today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-book-dragon-statue-on-wooden-1109975882?src=ZY-DFwH2WIuQamHZ0BdRSQ-1-41">ju_see/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How much money do students spend on college textbooks? The answer is: <a href="https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-estimated-undergraduate-budgets-2017-18">too much</a>.</p>
<p>Since 1982, the price of new textbooks has tripled even after taking inflation into account. Since 2006, it has <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/college-tuition-and-fees-increase-63-percent-since-january-2006.htm">outstripped the rate of increase for college tuition</a>. In contrast, the price of recreational books, a rough indicator of the cost of book production, has over roughly the same period fallen by almost 40 percent.</p>
<p>If this market seems unsustainable, it is. It might not be the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-death-of-textbooks/387055/">“Death of Textbooks</a>.” Nevertheless, four things suggest that the textbook market is in the middle of a major shift.</p>
<h2>1. Technological changes</h2>
<p>In many ways technology has caused the current price spike. On the most basic level, it has allowed the major textbook publishers, who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1182423?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">monopolize</a> textbook production, to churn out new editions at ever faster rates. This means that used copies become obsolete more quickly as instructors demand the most current edition. Textbooks also increasingly come with instructors’ manuals, lecture slides, online computer-graded problem sets, banks of ready-made test questions, and companion websites that come <a href="https://studentpirgs.org/sites/student/files/reports/Access%20Denied%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf">bundled as one product</a>. For busy faculty, such features are appealing as they cut down on time dedicated to course prep. And just to be sure that students cannot collectively buy or resell their course materials, publishers guard them with access codes that <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-senack/the-new-face-of-the-textb_b_12123370.html">prohibit sharing</a>. </p>
<p>Yet even as technology locks students to specific textbook editions, it has also cleared space for resistance. In classes where faculty shun bundles or remain flexible, students can rent books or snag online PDFs of earlier versions from sites like <a href="https://m.4shared.com/">4shared.com</a>. For non-bundled texts, students often purchase a single textbook - hard copy or electronic – to share. This is an illegal yet common practice.</p>
<p>Professors bypass standard publishing restrictions by putting free materials on course websites. Some dance at the edge of copyright law to create customized readers. Others write their own electronic <a href="https://studentpirgs.org/sites/student/files/reports/The%20Billion%20Dollar%20Solution.pdf">open-source textbooks</a>. Faculty also draw on large archives like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/">JSTOR</a> and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/">Project Muse</a>, which make academic articles available to college communities.</p>
<h2>2. Globalization</h2>
<p>Textbook publishers have taken advantage of global markets to increase their sales. But again, this push for globalization also complicates sales. The latest edition of <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/economics-samuelson-nordhaus/M0073511293.html">“Economics,”</a> by Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus, lists for US$219.88 from publisher McGraw-Hill and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Paul-Samuelson/dp/0073511293/">$205.87 from Amazon</a>. Yet this book is priced differently outside of the United States. A copy may be had for <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Economics-Paul-Samuelson/dp/0070700710">425 rupees ($6.09) in India</a>. In order to compete in large lower-income foreign markets such as China and India, publishers price differently for different markets, producing <a href="https://www.alibris.com/help/international-edition-textbooks">international editions</a> with identical content at lower prices. </p>
<p>Anyone who hopes to sell the same product at different prices can’t play this game for long. Resourceful students often locate these foreign editions. Similarly, we know firsthand of teachers who ignore the “Not for use in the U.S.” stamp on the title page of an otherwise standard English-language version. Global markets have also helped the sales in the legal used edition market. On Amazon.com buyers can find many listings from U.K. booksellers who can use the <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/2549/pound-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart">weakening pound</a> to undercut U.S. used book dealers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233177/original/file-20180822-149466-13kv6wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Due to forces of technology and globalization, prices for college textbooks could start to come down.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-african-american-female-student-group-544680310?src=DIiY3tSV8_YQUlCB_w3hUg-1-4">Daniel M. Ernst/www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. History</h2>
<p>History shows what is happening now has happened before. When European colleges and universities started in the 12th century, medieval students, like students today, needed texts for their courses. But most students could not afford to buy books – or more accurately, manuscripts, books written by hand that took weeks (<a href="http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/did-parchment-smell-your-manuscript-questions-answered/">if not years</a>) to produce. In the 1380s, a copy of <a href="http://www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/gratian-decretum-bartolomeo-brescia-60574">Gratian’s “Decretum</a>,” a standard legal textbook, might have cost around <a href="http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?dscnt=1&doc=IAMS040-002106542&displayMode=full&dstmp=1534600505232&_ga=2.79802391.1659516656.1534550416-618648165.1534550416&vid=IAMS_VU2&ct=display&tabs=detailsTab&fromLogin=true">six and a half pounds</a> – <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/">somewhere between $10,000 to $100,000 today</a>. Manuscripts were so expensive that students and faculty used them for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-student-loans-goes-back-to-the-middle-ages-56326">collateral for loans</a>.</p>
<p>Recognizing their students’ difficulty paying for books, schools built libraries and chained manuscripts to tables or shelves, or locked them in chests for use on the spot. By the mid-13th century, as student populations grew, universities also supported “stationarii,” or in English “stationers.” By law <a href="https://archive.org/details/bookstheirmakers01putnuoft">stationers had to keep authorized copies of works</a> used for university courses. Students and instructors could then hire official scribes to copy the parts of these works they needed for a class. Called <a href="http://penpiano.wikidot.com/pecia">the “pecia” system</a>, this practice predominated in the 14th and 15th centuries. At the University of Paris, university officials set pecia rates to protect students from being overcharged.</p>
<p>The college textbook market changed in the 15th century with the invention of the printing press. Print did not initially impact book prices. But by the early 16th century, <a href="https://archive.org/details/bookstheirmakers01putnuoft">prices began to drop</a> as technological improvements enabled lower-cost mass production. Libraries unchained their books and private collections grew.</p>
<p>The shift to printing reshaped the English book market in particular. Although English printers like <a href="https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/william-caxton-and-the-introduction-of-printing-to-england">William Caxton</a> created a market for luxury books and, eventually, for less expensive volumes, continental printers dominated the academic market. Printers in the Netherlands and Germany had more success at inexpensive large-scale production, and they soon drove Oxford- and Cambridge-based printers <a href="https://archive.org/details/bookstheirmakers01putnuoft">out of business</a>.</p>
<p>In sum, technology has frequently changed the textbook market, which was in flux from the moment of its inception.</p>
<h2>4. University and public alternatives</h2>
<p>Change is also coming from universities themselves, which maintain libraries, support thousands of journal subscriptions, and have increasingly encouraged faculty to write and use <a href="https://www.core-econ.org/">open-source textbooks</a>.</p>
<p>In the medium run, universities could go even farther by using their buying power to hold down prices, like their early university counterparts. More daringly, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research has proposed <a href="http://cepr.net/documents/publications/textbook_2005_09.pdf">public-domain textbooks with public financing</a> that would enhance consumer sovereignty and academic freedom.</p>
<p>In the short term, students are finding alternatives such as re-importation and collective ownership. And tomorrow’s students, like their medieval predecessors, just might enjoy more regulated and lower textbook prices than this current generation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An English and economics professor explain why America’s college textbook industry might undergo radical change that makes books more affordable, similar to what happened in medieval times.Jenny Adams, Associate Professor of English, UMass AmherstMichael Ash, Professor of Economics & Public Policy, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/893072017-12-21T00:03:08Z2017-12-21T00:03:08ZUniversities get an unsustainable policy for Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200285/original/file-20171220-4973-1gfpm1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The government is proposing to save A$2.2 billion on education over the next four years, which will hit students the hardest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Monday, the government announced its third attempt to significantly reduce spending on higher education in the <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2017-18/content/myefo/html/">Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook</a> (MYEFO). </p>
<p>It’s unclear whether the proposal is intended to be a long-term policy, or a bargaining chip to achieve the cuts Education Minister Simon Birmingham <a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/birmingham/focusing-facts-higher-education-reform">tried to push through earlier this year</a>. </p>
<p>Overall, it’s not very good policy, as it’s primarily about making savings rather than improving higher education. Australia needs a higher education system that can respond to change, not one that is locked down. It will become extremely difficult for any minister to reverse these funding cuts after a couple of years. Students will pay a greater share of costs as a result. </p>
<h2>What’s in the proposal?</h2>
<p>The government is <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/higher-education-reform-package-student-overview">proposing</a> to achieve savings in ways that don’t require Senate approval. It proposes to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>freeze Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) funding for bachelor level courses in 2018 and 2019 at 2017 levels. This means no increases for any additional bachelor degree student places or for increased costs due to inflation</p></li>
<li><p>increase CGS funding for bachelor level courses in 2020 and subsequent years by the growth rate in the 18-64 year old population (so, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3222.0main+features52012%20(base)%20to%202101">around 1.2% a year</a>), but only for universities which meet performance targets (the detail of which will be discussed in 2018) </p></li>
<li><p>reduce the number of funded postgraduate student places by removing 3,000 postgraduate places, which we are told are not used (and hence do not cost anything)</p></li>
<li><p>cease funding over 1,000 student places <a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/pyne/coalition-announces-additional-university-places">allocated in 2013</a> to meet priority skill and regional needs - 419 postgraduate places in allied health and nursing, 533 in language diplomas and 250 in enabling/tertiary preparation courses; and</p></li>
<li><p>change the current allocation of student places for diplomas, associate degrees and postgraduate level courses to better meet industry needs and reflect institutional outcomes (the detail of which will be discussed in 2018).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The government also indicated it would pursue some savings requiring Senate approval. These are to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>lower the HELP repayment threshold to A$45,000 and make other changes to the HELP repayment schedule to speed up student debt repayments; and</p></li>
<li><p>introduce a lifetime lending limit across all HELP programs, including HECS-HELP, capped at A$104,440 for most students and A$150,000 for students in medicine, dentistry and veterinary science. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What will the proposals do?</h2>
<p>The government estimates these proposals will save around A$2.2 billion over the next four years. Most of the savings come from freezing funding for bachelor degree courses in 2018 and 2019, and the limit on funding growth for those courses from 2020 onwards. </p>
<p>This funding is delivered through the student place subsidies paid under the CGS. Combined with a student’s contribution (usually paid through HECS-HELP), these cover the cost of teaching students.</p>
<p>The CGS provides subsidies for all courses, not just bachelor degree courses. It also provides a number of loadings, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-approach-to-regional-higher-education-is-essential-to-our-economic-future-88537">the regional loading</a>, to help to meet extra costs. In 2017, CGS spending will be around A$7.1 billion in total. </p>
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<p>The main target of the government’s proposals is the A$6 billion of spending on bachelor degree courses. Currently, universities can offer as many places for bachelor students as they want in the demand-driven system, so spending on this element of the CGS can increase without government approval. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uncapping-of-university-places-achieved-what-it-set-out-to-do-so-why-is-it-dubbed-a-policy-failure-61082">Uncapping of university places achieved what it set out to do. So why is it dubbed a policy failure?</a>
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<p>In the case of other courses, such as diplomas, associate degrees and postgraduate degrees, the government still controls how many places a university can offer. It controls its spending on these courses and special loadings. </p>
<p>The government will no longer try to lower the amounts of its contribution to student places, which are specified in higher education funding legislation. Instead, it will use a provision in the legislation that allows it to put a cap on funding for bachelor degree courses without Senate approval. </p>
<p>This is achieved simply by inserting a sentence specifying the upper limit on bachelor degree course funding in a university’s CGS funding agreement. The only restriction placed on the government is that the amount cannot go down from the previous year. So, in 2018, a university’s maximum funding for bachelor degree courses cannot be less than it was for 2017.</p>
<p>Universities don’t have the option not to sign these funding agreements. They are a precondition of getting any CGS funding and having any Commonwealth supported students. </p>
<p>Currently, the government will pay a university for every domestic bachelor degree student according to the legislated subsidy levels for the relevant year. It will still do this, but only up to the maximum amount specified in the funding agreement - then it will just stop. </p>
<p>When the maximum amounts for every university in 2018 are added up, they will not exceed the A$6 billion expected to be spent in 2017. The same goes in 2019.</p>
<h2>What happens after the freeze lifts?</h2>
<p>From 2020, a university may have its maximum amount for student places in bachelor degree courses increased by the growth rate in the 18-64 year old population, if the university meets performance targets. On current <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3222.0main+features52012%20(base)%20to%202101">ABS population projections</a>, that is likely to be around 1.2% each year.</p>
<p>Assuming all universities meet the performance targets, there are two ways of looking at the impact:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If a university grows its bachelor degree student places to match Australia’s growing population, the government subsidy component will never be increased to compensate for the increased costs of providing bachelor level places due to inflation. </p></li>
<li><p>If a university never increases its bachelor degree student places, the government subsidy component cannot rise by more than 1.2%. If inflation is 2.5%, the real value of the subsidy will be reduced by 1.3%.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Education Minister Simon Birmingham <a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/birmingham/interview-abc-rn-breakfast-hamish-macdonald">has been asked</a> what his policy will mean for the number of domestic student places. He can’t answer these questions because it’s not his decision. Universities are unlikely to increase domestic bachelor degree student places and the policy settings are likely to distort university decision-making.</p>
<p>Universities may decide to have fewer students in courses with above-average subsidy levels, such as health sciences, nursing, engineering and agriculture. They may increase students in courses with low subsidy levels, such as law, accounting, economics and administration. </p>
<p>The government hasn’t released estimates of how university funding will be reduced due to restricting growth in bachelor degree funding. The graph below indicates how it is likely to be reduced each year to 2025, based on a fairly conservative set of assumptions. It shows how rapidly the savings from such a proposal escalate. </p>
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<p>If the government’s policy is implemented, any minister would find it almost impossible to reverse. Ministers who want to change policy and increase spending have to find savings from elsewhere to cover the costs. The cost of reversing this policy would be massive, as it takes only a few years for it to produce savings of over a billion dollars a year.</p>
<h2>How does this affect students?</h2>
<p>While the government will substantially reduce its funding contribution by eroding its real value, students will continue to pay more as their contribution to the cost of their degree continues to increase with inflation. </p>
<p>In addition, if a university decides to grow its bachelor level student places despite not receiving any government subsidy for them, the student will still be required to make their contribution. </p>
<p>Both of these factors mean the 30-year trend of shifting the cost of higher education from government to students will continue. This is despite it being a major part of the reason student debts are continuing to grow and greater amounts are not being repaid - a problem the government claims it’s trying to fix. </p>
<h2>The demand-driven system is not unsustainable</h2>
<p>The rapid expansion that occurred under the demand-driven system <a href="https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/Media-and-Events/media-releases/University-enrolment-growth-remains-stable--latest-data#.Wjr52lT1VBy">has largely stabilised</a> and total funding for general research and tertiary education has declined in real terms by 1.3% over the last four years. </p>
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<p>Previous savings paid for most of the demand-driven expansion in student places and Australia’s spending on tertiary education as a share of GDP is <a href="http://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/news-and-events/beyond-the-demand-driven-obsession-and-policy-impasse">now lower</a> than it was before the demand-driven system was introduced.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vocational-education-and-training-sector-is-still-missing-out-on-government-funding-report-88863">Vocational education and training sector is still missing out on government funding: report</a>
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<p>The government is giving the objective of returning the budget to surplus a higher priority than the development of our tertiary education sector. This includes the vocational education and training system, which has already had its funding eroded over many years. </p>
<p>We can have both budget repair and well-funded tertiary education, but not with this policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Warburton is a part-time consultant and associate of PhillipsKPA, an education industry consulting group. He worked for Universities Australia in 2015 and prior to that was a public servant for 32 years, advising both Labor and Coalition Governments on higher education. </span></em></p>The cuts to higher education funding are more about making savings than improving higher education, and would be extremely hard to change in the future.Mark Warburton, Honorary Senior Fellow, LH Martin Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/432162015-07-13T11:04:46Z2015-07-13T11:04:46ZWhat kind of university can help reduce poverty?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85980/original/image-20150622-17715-4mwmeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's University of São Paulo</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/11707866505/sizes/o/">rvkroffi/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, development agencies have encouraged low and middle-income countries to focus their education spending on primary schools and basic vocational skills. They <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-does-so-little-foreign-aid-go-to-support-universities-43160">have considered</a> that universities provide lower rates of return on public investment and benefit elites at the expense of the poor. </p>
<p>That is changing and it’s now acknowledged that strong higher education systems are also a vital piece in the puzzle of poverty reduction. Countries need well-trained professionals to staff public services, as well as technological innovators and researchers to tackle local and national development challenges. The <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/specialreports/index.php?action=view&report=49">debates</a> on what the priorities should be after the Millennium Development Goals end in 2015 have shown a stronger endorsement for the role of universities.</p>
<p>However, higher education won’t have a real impact on countries’ development unless three key things take place. First, universities have to function together as part of a coherent system in the public interest. Second, access to higher education must be equitable and allow admission for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Third, teaching, research and community engagement must address key local and national development needs. </p>
<p>But none of these three elements can be taken for granted given universities’ current direction of travel.</p>
<p>Two major global trends in higher education are challenging these assumptions: commercialisation and “unbundling” – the gradual breaking up of the traditional campus university. Commercialisation has affected all aspects of universities’ operations, from “cost-sharing” or the introduction of tuition fees, to providing consultancy for the private sector and commercial outsourcing of campus services. Given the squeeze on public funds for universities across the world, there are few places in which institutions are not being strongly encouraged to commercialise their activities.</p>
<p>“Unbundling” refers to the process through which the combination of functions of the traditional university are separated out, potentially leading to the disintegration of the institution as we know it, according to Pearson’s chief education advisor Michael Barber in the report <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/files/FINAL%20Embargoed%20Avalanche%20Paper%20130306%20%281%29.pdf">An Avalanche is Coming</a>. </p>
<p>The unity of teaching, research and public service – with its roots in Humboldt’s University of Berlin in 1810 and developed through the <a href="http://ext.wsu.edu/documents/landgrant.pdf">US Land Grant universities</a> – is slowly being unravelled. Teaching-only institutions, employer-based degree programmes, the movement of research to private laboratories and consultancy firms, and particularly the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are contributing to this trend. </p>
<p>The huge growth of distance education providers, such as the <a href="Indira%20Gandhi%20National%20Open%20University">Indira Gandhi National Open University</a> in India, has also contributed to challenging the notion of university as a physical location. There are also moves towards separating out the teaching and accreditation functions of the university, with skills “<a href="http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/06/20/how-badges-really-work-in-higher-education.aspx">badges</a>” now awarded by external agencies.</p>
<h2>Proceed with caution</h2>
<p>The implications of these trends for addressing development needs in the resource-constrained countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America need careful assessment. Evidence from the process of commercialisation has been mixed to say the least.</p>
<p>Liberalisation of higher education in Brazil from the 1990s <a href="http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ihe/article/view/5471/4891">led to</a> an exponential growth in the private sector, now accounting for three quarters of enrolments, with nearly half of these in for-profit institutions. While undoubtedly having a positive impact on the expansion of access to university beyond just the most well-off in society, fees still put them out of the reach of many and there are <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/brazils-main-concern-is-research-quality-at-its-universities-says-adviser/2016854.article">widespread concerns about the quality</a> of provision of these institutions. Profit incentives lead to a driving down of investment in academic staff and learning resources, and attempts at regulating the sector have had limited success. </p>
<p>Kenya, with a much smaller enrolment base and weaker public and private financial capacity than middle-income Brazil, has also witnessed its own form of commercialisation. Since the mid-1990s, state universities have introduced a parallel stream – admitting fee-paying students alongside the government-subsidised ones. In some institutions these <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140508075050866&query=parallel+kenya">parallel streams</a> have spiralled out of control, reaching well over half of enrolments.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A tight squeeze at Kenyatta University library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Book Aid International/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>While for Kenyan universities these are a welcome source of revenue in the context of scarcity of public funds, they have led to an intolerable strain on quality. Recruitment of new lecturers has lagged way behind the expansion of enrolments and institutional infrastructure cannot support the influx of students.</p>
<h2>Don’t push efficiency too far</h2>
<p>In contrast to commercialisation, which has been developing for decades, unbundling is still in its infancy and we have no clear examples of systems in which the process is fully under way – so to a large extent we are reliant on extrapolation from initial signals. </p>
<p>One implication of the unravelling of higher education systems is decreasing state leverage, with an obvious impact on the ability to regulate for equality of opportunity in admissions. The importance of cross-fertilisation between teaching and research – benefiting both students and staff – is widely recognised. MOOCs, often touted as a potential saviour for impoverished regions of the globe, <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140626103112605">have limited potential</a> in contexts in which poor primary and secondary schooling has hampered young people’s ability to learn on their own.</p>
<p>One of the best-known contemporary initiatives in this area, the non-profit university <a href="http://kepler.org/#home">Kepler</a> in Rwanda, in fact shows a trend of what might be called “re-bundling”, providing face-to-face tuition and dormitory facilities to support students undertaking MOOCs.</p>
<p>So there is a worrying disjuncture between the hopeful vision of the potential of higher education held by development agencies, and the current trends for delivery endorsed by many of them. Bilateral and multilateral donors have shown strong support for new private sector providers and <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/10/15/world-bank-coursera-partner-open-learning">online distance</a> education under the <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140410191429827">emblem</a> of innovation. </p>
<p>Efficiency and affordability when pushed too far can undermine the <em>raison d’être</em> of the whole venture. If universities are to succeed in fostering both poverty reduction and development for the benefit of society, they must provide high-quality teaching and research in the public interest, and engage with local communities. Ultimately, it’s not just any higher education that will do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tristan McCowan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Department for International Development and British Council.</span></em></p>As more foreign aid starts going to higher education, developing countries need to be careful about the direction of travel for their universities.Tristan McCowan, Reader in Education and International Development, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/311232014-10-10T05:30:35Z2014-10-10T05:30:35ZDoes the age of online education herald the death of academics?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61183/original/xjjpvynh-1412782048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Human-centred leraning, a thing of the past?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-115920199/stock-photo-professor-telling-a-story-from-a-book.html?src=u9ZWoNYeV4l3o_SHMzIfdA-3-40">Professor via Olly/Shutterstock </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the mid-1980s as a further education lecturer I was mocked by some more traditional colleagues for using “lantern slides”, their term for the then newfangled technology of the overhead projector, or OHP. These Luddites strutted the corridors with coffee-tinted sheaves of notes stuffed untidily under their arms. They would sweep into the classroom, fling their pencil-written papyri on the lectern and, without so much as a glance at their students, commence reading out loud. </p>
<p>They seemed to think that their exegesis of the sacred texts of economics and business studies was blessed with a natural authority. The students concurred. Even when I projected my plastic slides onto the paint-peeling wall in lurid colour, they were inattentive. They took my colleagues’ aural dictation with the utmost seriousness. It was almost as if the ritual enunciation of the notes by the lecturer’s voice sanctified them as a legitimate source of learning. </p>
<h2>Digital expectations</h2>
<p>Academics today are increasingly expected to embrace all manner of digital media. Instead of sheaves of notes, we carry laptops, tablets or USB sticks to our lectures, to plug into multi-media audio-visual suites. </p>
<p>We might be asked to teach Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), to use social media for research impact or course delivery, to reach wider audiences through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLT0jAAR0B8">YouTube clips</a> or podcasts of our lectures. We’re also encouraged to embrace web-based teaching and assessment, and to offer student support via email, text messaging, or even Facebook. </p>
<p>This digitisation of education makes perfect sense at a time when a huge proportion of under-30s <a href="http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/know-your-audience-how-digital-native-millennial-generation-consume-media">rarely engage with print media</a>, preferring to access their information via internet-connected mobile devices. </p>
<p>But, engaging as digital media may be, is there a risk that the importance of the academic role is being forgotten, to the detriment of the student’s education? </p>
<h2>Medium and messenger</h2>
<p>No doubt, digital media can make higher education more appealing – and there is something suspiciously medieval about fetishising the personal authority of the individual scholar. But the foundation of Western education for two and a half thousand years has been not the medium, nor the message, but the messenger who gives physical expression, ritual force and emotional texture to the abstractions of the intellect. </p>
<p>The nuanced intellectual interaction of student and teacher in a shared physical space, stimulated by reading and expressed in voice or writing, is the motif of a higher education. Today, the Oxbridge model of small group tutoring remains the gold standard for higher education, reflecting the importance of proximity and dialogue in the scholarly relationship. </p>
<p>But few academics succeed in avoiding the need to translate their work into the latest communication media. Most universities try to improve the economic efficiency and market attractiveness of their offer by digitising courses to attract audiences that are bigger, more dispersed, and, perhaps, less skilled in the art of listening. </p>
<p>First-year classes numbering in the hundreds are made possible through multimedia course delivery – and the equivalent learners overseas can number in the thousands. At Georgetown University, for example, the <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/higher-education-innovation-and-digital-transformation-7000034121/">chief information officer has explained</a> that students check their mobile devices 43 times a day. In response, the university now has 35,000 students and faculty interacting on a mobile platform. </p>
<p>Which is all very well, but, as the late Canadian philosopher <a href="http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/">Marshall McLuhan</a> pointed out: a medium is not merely a means of transmission – it influences the character of the message. </p>
<h2>Rebranded for simplification</h2>
<p>There is a risk that academic ideas, adapted for digital presentation, might be reduced to misleading but easily conveyed simplicities. This reductionism lends itself to the commodification of higher education. Digitised courses can be subdivided, rebranded, repackaged, sold on and distributed in different forms as part-time, distance learning, “taster” or self-study units. </p>
<p>As media “content” that can be “delivered”, some of the work can be devolved to less-qualified staff, or even to machines (for example, to mark online multiple choice tests). The author of the course, whose curation of ideas and intellectual judgement lie at the core of the entire process, can be reduced to a faint imprint, or even erased altogether. </p>
<p>Even a star academic who earns millions of views for an online lecture is little more than a social media marketing tool. Education, as opposed to entertainment, is inherently incremental and demands a judicious mix of personal and mediated interaction between students and academics. </p>
<h2>Keep the academic authority central</h2>
<p>I might be exaggerating the downsides of digitisation. Most universities, I think, are sensible enough to allow the academic author control over, and physical presence in, the courses they create. In any case, there are inbuilt limits to the extent to which higher education can be depersonalised. </p>
<p>For one thing, academics as a species tend to be natural technophobes. Many fully digitised classrooms bear the hallmarks of Ludditism after a class leaves the room – a well-used A3 pad, interactive whiteboards written on in indelible marker, and a unbooted classroom PC. The notoriously <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-room-for-sloppiness-in-online-classroom-21861">high non-completion rates for MOOCs</a> testify to most students’ need for a personal level of engagement. </p>
<p>There is no turning back the tide of digitisation in higher education, but the integrity of the process demands the presence and authority of the academic. The media will obliterate the message, unless there is room in the digital university for the reassuring voice of the academic author and their skills of argument, inspiration, content curation and creation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31123/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Hackley has received funding from ESRC.</span></em></p>In the mid-1980s as a further education lecturer I was mocked by some more traditional colleagues for using “lantern slides”, their term for the then newfangled technology of the overhead projector, or…Chris Hackley, Professor of Marketing, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/322432014-09-29T12:42:51Z2014-09-29T12:42:51ZSearch results show MOOCs are driving online brand awareness for universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60295/original/hxwxx7vp-1411989694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How to stand out from the online crowd. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-113675095/stock-photo-cloud-shaped-as-graduated-hat-threw-in-sky-dreaming-concept.html?src=1nIX6jxsdrpRuLhEZg8WCg-1-1">Cloud graduation hats via T.Dallas/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think of a university, any university. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Yale may spring to mind. Or your local university, or the one you or someone you know attended. I’m fairly sure that the University of Phoenix, Arizona, was not one of the first you thought of (unless you live or study there). However, it recently topped the list of most searched-for universities released by <a href="29240959">Google to the BBC</a>. </p>
<p>Second on the list is Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which for the third consecutive year topped the league table of the <a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=">QS world’s best universities</a>. The Open University, a pioneer in distance learning in the UK, comes third. Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge appear on the list, but rank much lower than you’d expect (13th, 15th and 16th respectively). And Yale is not in the top 20, while five Indian universities are. </p>
<h2>A shift online</h2>
<p>It would appear that there has been a shift in search patterns in the last few years, with more and more people searching for universities based on their online offerings, rather than their reputation. </p>
<p>What the top three universities, and many other on the list, have in common is the provision of free online study materials. The appeal of the <a href="http://www.phoenix.edu/">University of Phoenix</a> seems to be based on their online courses, open admissions programme and the fact that they allow students to try courses before enrolling. It also has more than 100 campuses and study centres. </p>
<p>Since 2002, <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm">MIT has offered</a> free online materials through their very successful OpenCourseWare initiative: they currently offer over 2,000 courses and attract over 1m visits a month. The Open University – the top European institution in the list – offers free study materials through several channels including YouTube and <a href="http://www.open.edu/openlearn/">OpenLearn</a>, which has received over 33m visits.</p>
<p>These universities also offer a large amount of free materials on iTunes U, Apple’s online library of free educational resources, which <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/pr/library/2013/02/28iTunes-U-Content-Tops-One-Billion-Downloads.html">surpassed the billionth download mark</a> in 2013. Stanford University (ranked 7th on Google’s list) and The Open University were the first two universities to reach 50m iTunes U downloads. MIT’s iTunes U collection on how to design applications is among the most downloaded ever.</p>
<h2>MOOC boost</h2>
<p>In the last few years Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become hugely popular. These are free online courses provided mostly by universities which require registration to a platform but no payment. Among them, <a href="https://www.coursera.org/">Coursera</a>, with over 750 courses and over 9m users, is the largest MOOC platform, along with <a href="https://www.edx.org">EdX</a>, <a href="https://www.udacity.com/">Udacity</a> and more recently <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/">FutureLearn</a> in the UK, which is owned by The Open Univeristy.</p>
<p>Some of these platforms offer certificates of participation for those who complete the courses – including some paid-for certification. A big criticism of MOOCs has been the number of students who drop out: on average, <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-completion-rates-below-7/2003710.article">fewer than 10%</a> of registered users complete a MOOC. </p>
<p>But others have said that <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-room-for-sloppiness-in-online-classroom-21861">arguments</a> against them based on this statistic are too simplistic. The completion numbers of courses are essential to measure the success of traditional university courses, but should not necessarily be applied to free online courses. MOOC learners are not necessarily dropping out, but making choices about their learning. </p>
<p>At first it would appear contradictory to the universities’ business model to make their previously-inaccessible materials available to the general public. Now reforms have introduced <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-need-more-than-a-pledge-to-reduce-student-fees-25186">higher university fees</a> in the UK and elsewhere, it is unlikely that many of the students who take free online courses would make the jump from informal to formal learning. </p>
<p>There is some evidence (such as the case of the University of Phoenix) that a few do register for degrees after using the online material as tasters, but not in significant numbers. In addition, it appears that many MOOC and other online learners already have a university qualification. </p>
<p>The reasons why universities are providing all this free content are likely be the opportunity to enhance their reputation, plus an increase in brand awareness through the free publicity these courses bring. This is no more evident that in this Google list. </p>
<p>Free Open Online Courses (massive or not) provide learners with opportunities to learn about something they have an interest in: 82% of OpenLearn users report that they access the study materials because of personal rather than professional interest, as did nearly 72% of the participants in a <a href="http://libeprints.open.ac.uk/37382/1/Rosell%20Aguilar%20(2013)%20Delivering%20Unprecedented%20access%20to%20learning.pdf">recent study</a> of iTunes U users. </p>
<h2>Disruptive new models</h2>
<p>An initiative that may bridge both formal and informal learning options may be the <a href="http://oeru.org/">OER Universitas</a>, a collaboration between a number of universities (originally mainly from Australia and New Zealand). They are providing the opportunity for learners to combine successful engagement with a number of open educational resources and courses to gain a formal qualification.</p>
<p>Open content <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-dismiss-moocs-we-are-just-starting-to-understand-their-true-value-31037">may not be the threat</a> to university learning that some anticipated. It works alongside traditional offerings and caters to a different demographic. What the list of most searched-for universities demonstrates is that universities may not be in a position to rely on their name alone to remain relevant in the online education landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fernando Rosell-Aguilar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Think of a university, any university. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Yale may spring to mind. Or your local university, or the one you or someone you know attended. I’m fairly sure that the University…Fernando Rosell-Aguilar, Lecturer in Spanish and Media Fellow, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/310372014-09-04T05:23:52Z2014-09-04T05:23:52ZDon’t dismiss MOOCs – we are just starting to understand their true value<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58148/original/t93jp4vy-1409743004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ready to learn. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-214179223/stock-photo--closeup-of-hand-holding-smartphone-and-a-cup-of-coffee-while-studying.html?src=UBgQaPXm554-vv4iDsTMhw-2-63">Creativa via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past couple of years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have taken the academic world by storm. Despite <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/laptop-u">much debate</a> about whether the idea of running free online courses for everyone is both a good and cost-effective idea in the long-run, MOOCs are teaching universities valuable lessons about how students want to learn.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/five-myths-about-moocs/2010480.article">a recent article</a> for Times Higher Education that shocked many academics, Diane Laurillard claimed “free online courses that require no prior qualifications or fee are a wonderful idea but are not viable”. </p>
<p>I sincerely hope we are not already dismissing MOOCs as an expensive and unsuccessful experiment. As someone who leads and manages the <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/university-of-leeds">MOOC project</a> at the University of Leeds. I know that freely available online courses have enriched many people’s lives – both students and academics. They are also provoking real transformations in the way we think about learning and teaching on our campuses.</p>
<h2>Costly, but long-lasting</h2>
<p>Initial investment in designing, creating and delivering online courses is considerable – between £20,000 to £30,000 per course at Leeds. Filming academics giving a five minute introduction to their subject from a script using autocue, green screen, multiple cameras, professional microphones and lots of retakes is costly in time and resources.</p>
<p>But the learning materials live on. The end product, overlaid with animation and available as video in multiple formats, an audio podcast or a written transcript, can be repurposed, published and re-used in multiple contexts after the online course has finished. </p>
<p>While a proportion of academics are <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Professors-at-San-Jose-State/138941/">dismissive</a> of MOOCs, there is evidence that others are taking some of the underpinnings of digital learning into their own academic practice. They are increasingly recognising the potential for digital approaches to support learning, increase flexibility and access to a range of multimedia and interactive materials and encourage active student engagement. </p>
<p>In many learning situations, “blended” learning – a mix between face-to-face and digital – may be best. In <a href="http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/people/academic/morris">a recent survey</a> of academic staff at Leeds, 70% said they would recommend a MOOC to their students to supplement their on-campus learning. </p>
<p>These courses offer students the opportunity to interact with and question world-leading authorities in their subject, at the same time as learning with their course leaders and peers in on-campus lectures, seminars, tutorials and workshops. </p>
<p>In secondary schools, students are already taking MOOCs as part of, and alongside, their <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315591/DfE_RR355_-_Opportunities_for_MOOCs_in_schools_FINAL.pdf">classroom curriculum</a> to extend their learning. This is motivating individuals to engage with higher education, supports the transition to university and increases their knowledge. </p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum, a growth in <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/innovation-the-key-to-business-success">collaborative ventures</a> between universities, employers and professional organisations to co-produce online courses and embed them within degrees and professional training will increase employability, graduate skills and support the knowledge economy. </p>
<h2>Personalised learning</h2>
<p>One of the criticisms of MOOCs is the poor student-to-staff ratio, alongside questions on how learning purely online can be effective. First, most MOOCs <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/19/moocs-man-leading-uk-foray-simon-nelson-futurelearn">attract highly qualified individuals</a>. They are a ready-made pool of mentors, learning supporters and in some cases “teachers”. </p>
<p>We have seen a number of examples on our courses of school-level students being offered advice and mentorship from experienced practitioners in discussion forums. These interactions have emerged spontaneously and may dissolve quickly, but in some cases endure throughout the course. Harnessing this knowledge can enrich online courses considerably. </p>
<p>All MOOC designers know that there is so much more we could do to enrich the online learning experience for participants, particularly given the wide range of skills, knowledge, learning goals and expectations that learners bring to online courses. </p>
<p>For example, we already know that more than 50% of our online learners have never studied an online course before. We will soon use this knowledge about participants to offer them more choices. These could be choices about the way the content is delivered to them, the interaction with other participants and educators and the style and extent of assessment. </p>
<p>In the future, algorithms based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/snooping-professor-or-friendly-don-the-ethics-of-university-learning-analytics-23636">learner analytics</a> will offer participants a dynamic and personalised experience, based on sound educational research evidence, learner preferences and cohort analysis. </p>
<p>Our collective experiences of MOOCs and the data coming out of them has the unique opportunity to offer insight into online learning which can also be used on our campuses to enrich either the blended or face-to-face experience. We should not be too quick to dismiss them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Neil Morris, Director of Digital Learning, and Professor of Educational Technology, Innovation and Change, is the University of Leeds Partner Representative for FutureLearn, the online learning course provider. </span></em></p>Over the past couple of years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have taken the academic world by storm. Despite much debate about whether the idea of running free online courses for everyone is both…Neil Morris, Professor of Educational Technology, Innovation and Change in the School of Education and Director of Digital Learning, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/305572014-08-25T05:19:44Z2014-08-25T05:19:44ZMulti-discipline courses will help solve emerging global problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57167/original/v65cpscy-1408700414.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Studying one subject won't help save the world. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-210697081/stock-photo-world-map-on-green-leaves.html?src=dt_last_search-6">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the globe, we are experiencing rapid changes to our environment and social structures. Climate change, population growth, and social unrest are causing ever increasing problems. The rate of change poses serious challenges for education and how we prepare graduates for an unpredictable future.</p>
<p>Courses addressing environmental change and social adaptability are slowly appearing in university prospectuses around the world. For the most part, these topics come in the form of new post-graduate courses. </p>
<p>For example, Harvard University has a graduate program in <a href="http://www.extension.harvard.edu/degrees-programs/sustainability-environmental-management">sustainability and environmental management</a>. The prospectus states students will be “primed to create solutions to the crises affecting our global community”. Many other universities also now run similar masters-level courses on environmental sustainability.</p>
<h2>Combining different subjects</h2>
<p>But sustainability as a subject can only be taught by drawing from several academic disciples. The answers to the big global questions cannot be found within single traditional disciplines such as biology or politics on their own. </p>
<p>The new courses tend to combine elements of environmental science, economics and politics. They often include modules covering new topics such as global environmental politics or the sustainability of food production. Enabling students to learn from multiple disciplines is a crucial step towards helping them address the big problems facing society. This is particularly important since we cannot predict what the future problems might be.</p>
<p>Undergraduate courses have lagged behind, but there are some truly interdisciplinary degree courses beginning to appear. Several universities now provide a diverse education via new BASc degrees in arts and sciences. The most successful examples are from <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/basc">University College London</a> in the UK and <a href="http://artsci.os.mcmaster.ca/about-the-program">McMaster University</a> in Canada. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57082/original/rtgbz8b4-1408631489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Helping to solve tomorrow’s problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-211373263/stock-photo-businessman-hand-shows-light-bulb-with-planet-earth-as-concept.html?src=i2AcOVxB4bsObelzE58F5w-2-5">Lightbulb image via Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The BASc degrees typically include new modules on multi-disciplinary working and communicating knowledge. These enable students to then pick and mix from pre-existing modules across many different departments. Additional features of these degrees include interdisciplinary research projects and substantial work placements, which are likely to improve employability.</p>
<h2>Flexibility and online learning</h2>
<p>Broad interdisciplinary degrees are unfortunately not yet widely available. However, more international universities are now offering flexible combined honours degrees. This approach is similar to the US major/minor model of higher education. </p>
<p>Many university students also now routinely use <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/22/study-mooc-top-universities">Massive Open Online Courses</a> to extend their learning beyond their degrees. Supplementing learning with online courses provides broader training than is available through standard degrees. </p>
<p>Such approaches are well placed to provide the diversity of knowledge students need to address the global environmental and social problems that don’t stay within the realms of a single subject. But diversifying education is only part of the change needed. The methods we use to teach and assess students also play critical roles in making them adaptable. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/subjects/medev/Problem-based_learning-_a_practical_guide_%2815%29">Problem-based learning</a> is already at the heart of many <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7384/328">medical</a> and <a href="http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/teaching-and-learning-practices/pbl/">law</a> degrees. It provides the opportunity to practice broad thinking under real-world situations. Problem based learning also encourages self-directed and explorative learning. This approach could be used more broadly to encourage the ability to adapt that students need in the current climate. </p>
<p>For example, students could be faced with a local farmer who is experiencing crop failures, or a small business which is struggling due to the increasing cost of raw materials. The students then research the underlying problems and potential solutions. Both scenarios are broadly related to climate change, but the first might require pulling together subjects such as ecology, soil science, engineering, and economics. The second scenario might require research on climate forecasting, ecosystem services, and business. </p>
<p>Some universities now offer cross-disciplinary problem-based <a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/grandchallenges/">learning events</a> focused around global challenges such as food security or even educational reform itself. Assessment can be directly built into these new forms of teaching, reducing the reliance on traditional exams, which have been widely <a href="http://edukologija.vdu.lt/en/system/files/ConstrutivismAligment_Biggs_96.pdf">criticised</a> for being a poor test of understanding. </p>
<h2>Skills for unpredictable situations</h2>
<p>Rolling out modern teaching and learning approaches more broadly could help students to integrate the many disciplines needed to address global change, and to apply their knowledge to unpredictable situations.</p>
<p>Our education system was designed for a bygone time, and is not equipping students with the skills to thrive in our changing world. It is clear that <a href="http://www.socialtalent.co/blog/graduate-hiring">employers</a> increasingly need staff who are capable of working in unstructured situations. Broader society also needs the same flexibility in this time of great change. Reluctance to change is common, but universities will need to embrace new approaches educate tomorrow’s society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Griffiths is scientific adviser for cultural laboratory, FoAM Kernow. She currently receives funding from the EU, the Royal Society, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the Fishmongers' Company. Her ORCID ID is 0000-0002-7455-6795.</span></em></p>Across the globe, we are experiencing rapid changes to our environment and social structures. Climate change, population growth, and social unrest are causing ever increasing problems. The rate of change…Amber Griffiths, Lecturer in Natural Environment, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/251782014-04-22T11:45:44Z2014-04-22T11:45:44ZThe box-ticking future of a university education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46687/original/xy8756xk-1397734979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C55%2C1022%2C654&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We got credentialised! </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/edventures/3541838017/sizes/l">climbnh2003</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the many changes currently sweeping through US public universities is a move away from traditional seat-time in class. Known as “competency-based education”, it is often done online, asking students to demonstrate they can meet certain core skills or competencies. </p>
<p>Its <a href="https://chronicle.com/article/Competency-Based-Education/141871/">proponents offer it up</a> as a cure to the ills that are allegedly facing higher education today, such as underprepared students, the “skills gap” and the general “academic drift” of the university. Those against it are worried the end result will be a university education that will be cheaper in all senses of the word, but also one that is highly stratified and unworthy of the label “higher education”.</p>
<p>Recently the push towards competencies has become linked with a movement called the “<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/29/complete-college-america-report-tracks-state-approaches-performance-based-funding%22">college completion agenda</a>, which seeks, in part, to allocate public funding to universities depending on how many students finish college. Advocates, including president Barack Obama, argue it is urgently needed to move more students through higher education.</p>
<h2>Quicker through the system</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-Program/Postsecondary-Success">Gates Foundation</a> and <a href="http://completecollege.org/">Complete College America</a> claim the completion agenda is urgently needed to get people to finish their degree faster, cheaper and with less student loan debt. It is meant to increase jobs and spur innovation in the intensified competition of the global knowledge economy. </p>
<p>Those in favour include a rather motley amalgamation of edu-metricians in fields such as <a href="https://www.apa.org/ed/graduate/guide-benchmarks.pdf">educational psychology</a> who have been dreaming about rationalising and standardising education since the days of American psychologist E.L. Thorndike.</p>
<p>Joining them are a variety of neoliberal think thanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, who have longed to turn the market loose on one of the last holdouts of the now greatly diminished public realm. Also in favour are philanthropic groups such as the Lumina and Gates Foundations that have essentially become political action committees by another name. </p>
<p>Finally a host of edu-preneurial companies, such as Pearsons, Udacity and others, who are hoping to be on the ground floor of the ”<a href="https://theconversation.com/snooping-professor-or-friendly-don-the-ethics-of-university-learning-analytics-23636">edu-metrics</a>“ and "credentials” market in the making. Alongside them are various business interests groups who want to avoid on-the-job training costs by capturing universities and turning them into large corporate training centres. </p>
<p>They contend that if we could only precisely define what students need to know, it would be possible to accurately measure “learning outcomes” through standardised assessments rather than relying on time spent in class. Students could then move through these at whatever pace they choose.</p>
<h2>Cheap and substandard</h2>
<p>Those who oppose this model contend that this is not education at all but simply a <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/08/08/competency-based-education-puts-efficiency-learning-essay">cheap, substandard means</a> of providing students with credentials.</p>
<p>With these learning outcomes in place, a large data system could be used to move entire degree programs to a competency-based model where each student would be required to meet certain measurable competences as defined by the skills needs of a business. Government would come in to help mandate the partnerships working through the boards of various university systems.</p>
<p>Adopting such an approach would allow education to become “personalised” as students check off various knowledge and skills and receive their credential or badge. </p>
<p>Such a process can even be done with few or no professors, such as at online universities like Western Governors University (WGU), Southern New Hampshire University’s “College for America” or Capella University’s “FlexPath”. Students, or “education pioneers” in <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/22/competency-based-educations-newest-form-creates-promise-and-questions#sthash.svT5oajK.dpbs">Capella’s</a> adventurous sounding euphemism, who “attend” these universities will then be responsible for navigating their way through these standardised competencies. </p>
<p>The new job of professors in this model – or “<a href="http://www.wgu.edu/about_WGU/wgu_faculty">course mentors</a>” in the eduspeak of WGU – is to develop the standards and competencies and measure students, not necessarily to teach. Indeed, teaching has no real place in this model.</p>
<p>While the completion agenda seems to have burst onto the US higher education scene only in the past few years, the move towards competencies and away from seat-time actually has rather deep roots. </p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.ajol.info/index.php/jfecs/article/viewFile/52788/41390">dates back</a> to the “behavioural objectives” push in teacher training programs in the US and in vocational training reforms the UK and <a href="http://www.hwa.gov.au/sites/uploads/national-competency-report-final-20120410.pdf">Australia</a>.</p>
<h2>Students at risk</h2>
<p>While the convergence of these two reforms in the US is relatively new, they have been fuelled by a third process that has been unfolding more slowly over the last few decades – the transformation of the student into the consumer. Because of the unrelenting pressures of market forces, these students will be solely responsible for assuming the risks of their own education. </p>
<p>Here, education is viewed as an individual investment in a person’s own human capital rather than an expenditure by society for the collective good. The result of this transformation is the creation of a “scared straight” student consumer who is forced to live in constant fear of accruing large amounts of debt, selecting the most lucrative major and finding a good job. </p>
<p>From the student’s vantage point anything that appears to <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/02/27/essay-critiques-how-student-customer-idea-erodes-key-values-higher-education">“slow down” education</a> is considered a “waste of time and money”.</p>
<p>Today, public higher education in the US seems to be facing the proverbial perfect storm. Those pushing the completion agenda want to crank out new graduates as fast as possible to fill a skills gap that is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/krugman-jobs-and-skills-and-zombies.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0">actually a jobs gap</a>. </p>
<p>Ironically, the very processes that are thought to be finally bringing market discipline to what neoliberal reformers consider to be the much too public, public university will end up pricing those very reforms as “cut-rate merchandise”. </p>
<p>Such a realisation may come too late to preserve public higher education in the US. As higher education systems around the world begin to converge around neoliberal models of reform and open up to more online and private forms of higher education, the US model may soon become a global exemplar. </p>
<p>In the end these reforms may either privatise higher education completely or turn it into a self-funded servant of national economic and business interests that is public in name only. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven C. Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Among the many changes currently sweeping through US public universities is a move away from traditional seat-time in class. Known as “competency-based education”, it is often done online, asking students…Steven C. Ward, Professor of Sociology , Western Connecticut State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236362014-02-26T14:40:36Z2014-02-26T14:40:36ZSnooping professor or friendly don? The ethics of university learning analytics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42479/original/bc7z87tf-1393343743.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is my professor watching every click?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/5tein/2348649408/sizes/l/"> Mr_Stein</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities have been recording data digitally about their students for decades. No one would seriously question the necessity of collecting facts for administrative purposes, such as a student’s name and address, module choices and exam results. </p>
<p>But as teaching and learning <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-9-000-students-expect-their-classes-to-go-digital-22775">increasingly migrate to the internet</a>, huge amounts of data about individuals’ activities online are being accumulated. These include everything from postings on forums, to participation in video conferences, to every click on every university-hosted website. </p>
<p>Most of the records gather virtual dust in log files, never to be analysed by any computer system let alone viewed by a human. Universities have only recently started to realise the huge potential of using this data to help students succeed in their learning, or to improve the educational experience for others.</p>
<h2>Privacy concerns</h2>
<p>With these possibilities come dangers that the data could be used in ways undesirable to students. These include invading their privacy, exploiting them commercially by selling their data to third parties or targeted marketing of further educational products. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, well-intentioned pedagogical innovations which access the data may have unforeseen negative consequences, such as demotivating students who are told they are at risk of failure.</p>
<p>Institutions have clear legal responsibilities to comply with data protection legislation, restricting information from access by third parties and allowing students to view the data held about them when requested. </p>
<p>Universities are commercial organisations, but are also motivated by altruistic concerns such as enhancing the life chances of individuals through education. The multinational technology corporations which we unquestioningly allow to collect vast amounts of data about us have altogether different motivations. </p>
<p>For them, your data is of immense commercial value, enabling products to be targeted at you with increasing relevance. Most educational institutions need to act differently from for-profit organisations when dealing with users’ data.</p>
<h2>What’s being done with the data?</h2>
<p>Predictive modelling enables institutions to build a profile of a student. This can include information they have disclosed about themselves in advance of study, such as prior qualifications, age or postcode. This can then be mapped onto records of their online activity and assessment performance. </p>
<p>Predictions can then be made as to the likelihood of a student dropping out or what grade they can be expected to achieve. <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/34939/">The Open University is developing models</a> to target interventions at students thought to be at risk.</p>
<p>For example, a student who has no prior qualifications and has not participated in a key activity or assessment may be flagged for a telephone call by a tutor. Experience has shown that such a call may be what is required to motivate the student or help them overcome an issue which is preventing them studying. </p>
<p>Various ethical issues emerge here. If we establish early on that a student is highly likely to fail, should we advise them to withdraw or to re-enrol on a lower level course? </p>
<p>But what if we are limiting their opportunities by taking such an intervention? They might have continued successfully had we not intervened. Meanwhile, for those students thought not to be at risk, we are potentially denying them the possibility of beneficial additional contact with a tutor.</p>
<h2>Opt out option</h2>
<p>If the primary purpose of learning analytics is to benefit learners, then should a student be able to opt out of their data being collected? </p>
<p>There are two problems with this. We may be neglecting our responsibilities as education experts by allowing some students to opt out. This could deny them the assistance we can provide in enhancing their chances of success. The data collected can also be used to benefit other students, and every individual opting out potentially diminishes the usefulness of the dataset. </p>
<p>One environment where a student might reasonably assume they are free from data being collected about them is while accessing an e-book offline on a personal device such as an iPad or a Kindle. </p>
<p>Some US institutions are already providing students with <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/now-e-textbooks-can-report-back-on-students-reading-habits/40928">e-reader software which captures data such as clicks and dwell times</a>, storing them on the device and uploading it to a server for analysis. But unless users are made aware that this is happening, universities run the risk of being accused of unjustified snooping.</p>
<p>It is unclear to what extent the constant collection of data on online activity inhibits learning or even worries students. Do students care any more about what universities do with data on their educational activities than they do about the data collected by Google or Facebook on their personal interests, relationships and purchasing habits?</p>
<p>But the trust given to universities by students elevates the importance of caretaking their data and establishing clear policies for what we do with it. </p>
<p>Transparency about the data we collect, and how and why we are using it, will help to avoid a backlash from learners worried about potential misuse. Institutions need to develop clear policies arguing why the collection and analysis of data on students and their learning is in their interest. This is a necessary step before being able to exploit the full potential of learning analytics to enhance the student experience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niall Sclater does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Universities have been recording data digitally about their students for decades. No one would seriously question the necessity of collecting facts for administrative purposes, such as a student’s name…Niall Sclater, Director of Learning and Teaching, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218612014-01-16T14:48:11Z2014-01-16T14:48:11ZNo room for sloppiness in online classroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39210/original/bc3s4bb5-1389875205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C33%2C1011%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No patience for mess. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ted_major</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When your classroom is a global one, filled with well-informed online learners, they don’t cut you much slack. Hundreds of people pore over every element of your course, making well-informed and sometime acerbic comments. Academics who run Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are finding that they can’t afford any sloppy reasoning, one-sided arguments, or narrow perspectives when teaching to a massive global audience. </p>
<p>As academic lead at <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/">FutureLearn</a>, a company offering free online courses from UK universities, I’ve seen that this instant feedback can be eye-opening for course designers. </p>
<p>On a university campus, students stick around even though the teaching may be dreadful, because they need the degree qualification. In MOOCs they leave as soon as they lose interest.</p>
<p>So far, much of the debate in the United States about MOOCs has focused on the dropout rate. Typically, just 7-10% of students enrolled on a course from a US MOOC provider reach the end. But that assumes completion should be the goal of online learning, and that students who drop out early are failures. Much of the early publicity around free online courses focused on them as alternatives to an expensive campus university education. It’s hardly surprising that the simplest measure of failure, student dropout, has been picked up by commentators hoping to burst the MOOC bubble.</p>
<p>It’s now time to move on. The university system, which has seen plenty of social and technological change since medieval times not least the introduction of mass printing, is not going to crumble in the face of free online courses underpinned by questionable business models. Instead, something more interesting is happening. In 2009, the US Department of Education published <a href="http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/evaluation-evidence-based-practices-online-learning-meta-analysis-and-review-online-learning-studies">an important study</a>. It reviewed over a thousand evaluations of online learning and found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. And, on average, those students who had a blend of campus and online teaching performed even better.</p>
<p>This lies at the heart of the new debate about online learning and MOOCs: how can we match online learning with classroom teaching, to create more relevant, engaging and effective education? </p>
<p>One way to do that is by extending traditional teaching online. Many universities are now recording lectures and making them available to watch later. Instead of just attending a lecture, making a few notes, then putting these aside till exam time, students are engaging in online learning outside of class, by reviewing the lecture and joining with other students in online assignments.</p>
<p>The other approach is through MOOCs. Because these are free and available worldwide (MOOCs are currently even available in China, a country that has blocked social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook), it isn’t surprising that they have attracted a wide range of learners. Most are motivated by curiosity and a desire to learn, rather than the need to gain a qualification. Some register to find out more about MOOCs in general, some only want a taste of the topic being taught, some skim through the material to gain an overview of the subject, and some engage fully with the teaching and with fellow students. </p>
<p>MOOCs will almost certainly not replace university campuses within our lifetimes. But they are finding a much-needed niche, with universities using free courses as a way to attract students onto postgraduate courses or to prepare students for undergraduate degrees. They are discovering how online learning can blend with traditional teaching. It’s not surprising that companies and public sector organisations are now looking to get in on the act of merging online and classroom teaching. It’s the participation that matters, not the dropout.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Sharples has a secondment to the FutureLearn company as Academic Lead.</span></em></p>When your classroom is a global one, filled with well-informed online learners, they don’t cut you much slack. Hundreds of people pore over every element of your course, making well-informed and sometime…Mike Sharples, Chair in Educational Technology, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102852012-10-23T04:27:23Z2012-10-23T04:27:23ZVideo & podcast: Future of Higher Education symposium<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16795/original/jwzz569m-1350955396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5616%2C3430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are still many questions left about the Future of Higher Education, but here's some thoughts from our symposium.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Higher education image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Resisting technological change is futile, <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-offer-enormous-potential-minister-10268">according</a> to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans. So how should Australian universities respond to the technological change of online education?</p>
<p>This was the big question posed to The Conversation panel at yesterday’s symposium on the Future of Higher Education, put together in collaboration with the Office for Learning and Teaching. </p>
<p>The minister, who attended the symposium, said he was looking for answers. As you might expect, we found some, but we found even more questions.</p>
<p>Watch here to see how it went:</p>
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<p>And in this podcast, participants from the forum offer a few reflections on the day and what they think will happen next.</p>
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<p>Read the full <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education series here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Resisting technological change is futile, according to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans. So how should Australian universities respond to the technological change of online education? This…Bella Counihan, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101962012-10-21T19:25:33Z2012-10-21T19:25:33ZLive-stream: Future of Higher Education symposium<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16718/original/9d79b2ym-1350610360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=308%2C0%2C4491%2C2601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Take part in The Conversation's Future of Higher Education symposium here.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Online learning image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five of our authors will today present their ideas on the future of higher education in a conversation with Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans. And you’re invited to take part.</p>
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<p>For two weeks our authors have been putting forward their ideas on how the university sector can respond to the online revolution underway in higher education. Today these ideas will be debated in a two-hour symposium with the Minister.</p>
<p>We hope the discussion will inform future policy decisions on this important issue.</p>
<p>These 5 panelists have been selected from the 15 articles which themselves were drawn from 120 submissions on the topic of predicted change ahead in higher education. Series authors were asked to consider the implications of the rise in online and blended learning on teaching, learning, the student experience and the physical infrastructure of campuses.</p>
<p>You’ve been submitting your comments via the articles, Twitter and Facebook. Today some of those questions will be put to the Minister and panel. And we’d love to hear from you today.</p>
<p>We’re tweeting under #FutureHigherEd and look forward to your comments here, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">www.facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</p>
<p>If you haven’t had a chance to catch up on the series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">you can read all of our author’s contributions here</a>:</p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-online-why-universities-need-to-be-knowledge-brokers-10146">Research online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers</a>, Justin O'Brien</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eleven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-at-the-coalface-what-academics-need-to-know-9715">Online education at the coalface: what academics need to know</a>, Rod Lamberts & Will Grant</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part twelve: <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-little-bit-more-conversation-the-limits-of-online-education-9801">A little bit more conversation: the limits of online education</a>, Shirley Alexander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part thirteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-students-want-and-how-universities-are-getting-it-wrong-10000">What students want and how universities are getting it wrong</a>, Alasdair McAndrew</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part fourteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-elephant-in-the-chat-room-will-international-students-stay-at-home-9727">The elephant in the chat room: will international students stay at home?</a>, Thomas Birtchnell</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part fifteeen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deeper-learning-by-design-what-online-education-platforms-can-do-9803">Deeper learning by design: what online education platforms can do</a>, Gavin Melles</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Five of our authors will today present their ideas on the future of higher education in a conversation with Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans. And you’re invited to take part. For two weeks our authors…Bella Counihan, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98032012-10-20T00:28:55Z2012-10-20T00:28:55ZDeeper learning by design: what online education platforms can do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16727/original/q9qghcqd-1350622035.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C115%2C3852%2C2796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online platforms need to be well-designed if they're going to help students learn. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Online image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. In the final part of our series, Swinburne University’s Gavin Melles looks at how we design online education.</em></p>
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<p>Online learning not only needs good content from experts, it needs the right kind of system to support it. These online platforms need to be designed in a way that is intuitive, easy to use and that enhances student learning.</p>
<h2>Systematic learning</h2>
<p>There are two kinds of platforms that university students use. One is the learning management system or LMS and the other is the emerging open online course, also known as the MOOC.</p>
<p>An LMS is used across a university to put course content online for fee paying students. It’s used for administration, communication between students and lecturers, it also houses learning content, like text, video, and short quizzes or games. The open online course is much the same but free to any student, with a greater emphasis on peer instruction and feedback.</p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13583883.2005.9967137">specific challenges</a> that come with the design of an LMS or an online course site – its design can effect teaching practices and student engagement. We need to evaluate these systems in the context of a commitment to good teaching and <a href="http://mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335242758.html">“deep” learning</a> – and that can’t just mean the ordinary student surveys. </p>
<p>Universities and course providers must understand the needs of an increasingly diverse student cohort, so that they can design their online course sites and LMS accordingly. </p>
<p>As Lindsay Tanner in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/universities-must-adapt-or-die-in-the-e-learning-world/story-e6frgcjx-1226176625274">a recent article in the Australian</a> suggests there has been lots of tech(nology) and not much ped(agogy) in responses to rising student numbers and new ways of learning. </p>
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<h2>Barriers to learning</h2>
<p>There are many potential barriers to online study. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587910500081269">Research has shown</a> that students can be stopped from learning effectively online because of administrative issues, social interaction, academic skills, technical skills, learner motivation, time and support for studies, cost and access to the internet, and technical problems. </p>
<p>This list suggests something of the breadth of human, technological, pedagogical and institutional issues that configure the problem facing universities. </p>
<p>Such questions cannot be answered by just finding the right platform. And as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877032000098662">researchers Blass & Davis (2003)</a> pointed out almost a decade ago this also does not mean simply putting existing teaching materials “on the Web” but rather a shift towards interactive learner-oriented use of technology. <a href="http://www.webdesignersblog.net/inspiration/35-outstanding-educational-website-designs/">Some</a> but not all universities have taken the message about usability and purpose seriously.</p>
<h2>Custom learning</h2>
<p>The choice of platform and the degree of flexibility with which it can be customised is key. Commercial LMS platforms, such as <a href="http://www.blackboard.com">Blackboard</a>, or free platforms, like <a href="http://moodle.org">Moodle</a>, offer different degrees of flexibility and structuring that may or may not contribute to the effective delivery and use of curriculum material. </p>
<p>Such platforms may integrate with existing web 2.0 technologies such as Youtube, or Facebook, with which students are already familiar. Chris Dawson at ZDNet Education <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/lms-sis-sif-lti-alphabet-soup-and-blended-learning-7000000420/">recently points to three key issues</a> for increasing adoption and use of learning platforms - integrating with existing Web 2.0 gadgets, e.g. Facebook, better responses to teacher demands for tools such as capturing lesson content, and considering costs savings by moving to simpler more cost effective systems. </p>
<h2>Poor design</h2>
<p>The question of what are the best online education sites partly deflects attention away from more fundamental issues. Web-design on university sites in general <a href="http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/best-and-worst-design-50-university-websites-from-50-states">seems to be poor</a>. </p>
<p>Students, for example, value consistent use of LMS. Faculty must have guidelines that lead to the use of LMS in consistent ways. <a href="http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/217">Researchers Brown & Voltz</a> suggest that six key dimensions need to be addressed: creating rich learning activities, situating activities within an interesting story line, providing meaningful opportunities for student reflection and third party criticism, considering appropriate technologies for delivery, ensuring that the design is suitable for the context in which it will be used, and bearing in mind the personal, social, and environmental impact of the designed activities. </p>
<p>With its <a href="ocw.mit.edu">open courseware</a> MIT lead a trend, now followed by other top-100 universities like <a href="http://www.edx.org">Harvard and UC Berkeley</a>. One of the most successful aggregator sites is <a href="http://www.coursera.org">Coursera</a> with over 1.5 Million users, gathering a wide range of introductory and other courses for massive open online course (MOOC) access. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PojLL3E-zk0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Coursera.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Changing ideas?</h2>
<p>Whether or not open courseware represents a “seismic shift” in higher education as reported by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortium-of-colleges-takes-online-education-to-new-level.html">New York Times</a> remains to be seen. Such programs challenge Australian universities to develop non-proprietary attitudes to community engagement. </p>
<p>Despite the plethora of platforms and technologies employed and the rise in open courseware, one <a href="http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/barriers-adoption-online-learning-systems-us-higher-education">recent US report</a>, describes systems that support interactive learning online (ILO) as still at a very early stage. </p>
<p>The study suggests more sharing of results between institutions on platform performance and greater investment in more sustainable and customisable platforms; two suggestions that Australia also needs to consider as it moves forward. </p>
<p>Thus, pedagogy must guide decisions about technology. Whether Australian universities can respond with sophisticated answers to a complex environment remains to be seen. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude this Monday with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p>*We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Melles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. In the final part of our series…Gavin Melles, Lecturer, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97272012-10-19T03:40:16Z2012-10-19T03:40:16ZThe elephant in the chat room: will international students stay at home?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16651/original/qxvwcnv7-1350518273.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2551%2C1519&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With free, quality online education from brand-name universities, will overseas students come to Australia?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elephant image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Wollongong University’s Thomas Birtchnell looks at what online education will mean for the international student market.</em></p>
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<p>In 1923, a young boy leaves his small village in India and travels by boat to study at Columbia University in the United States. </p>
<p>This is a time when only five out of every hundred of India’s three hundred million people can read and write. His story, featured in a Boy Scouts’ magazine, was billed as “The Boy Who Would Educate India”. He would return to India with his degree to “teach the people something besides religion” and put India on the path to development. </p>
<p>The aim of the feature was to be an inspirational story for young Americans – they, too, should strive for an education and help others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15711/original/8g2xjzz3-1348152470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Boy Who Would Educate India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boy Scout Magazine, 1923</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But not all goes to plan. His job at as a messenger boy at the Western Union falls through (most likely due to <a href="http://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/ImmigrationAct">visa</a> issues). In order to complete his degree, he takes up an informal job as a carer for a wealthy family’s children. And his own family need him back in India. </p>
<p>Unable to balance his lowly job with his study, he makes the long trip home without his doctorate, scrubbing the decks to pay for his passage.</p>
<p>This story will seem somewhat familiar for many international students from India today, who come to Australia expecting to earn a degree, find a secure job and eventually to apply for residency. This is the dream of a better life through mobility.</p>
<p>But in many cases they find themselves balancing study with poor work and living conditions and, once their degree is finished, they are told to head back home. </p>
<p>But does the arrival of free quality online education change all this? Had “The Boy Who Would Educate India” been a student today, would he have still made the journey?</p>
<h2>Study Without Moving</h2>
<p>New technologies are making their way into the global education system and may challenge the way universities operate. </p>
<p>Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), for example, offer expert tuition from the world’s most prestigious universities for free — <a href="http://theconversation.com/stanford-steps-up-online-learning-focus-as-moocs-take-hold-9220">Stanford</a>, <a href="http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/05/harvard-teams-up-with-mitx-launching-edx-in-battle-of-the-moocs/">Harvard</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/education/coursera-adds-more-ivy-league-partner-universities.html?_r=0">Columbia</a> and now <a href="https://theconversation.com/melbourne-uni-signs-on-to-coursera-with-others-expected-to-follow-9720">Melbourne</a> to name a few. </p>
<p>Most seriously for education exporters, these new technologies appear to threaten the lucrative international student market, now a considerable slice of universities’ incomes. The market for Indian students alone is worth over <a href="http://theconversation.com/india-the-new-asia-and-the-american-presidential-elections-9701">$3 billion to the US</a>, and was expected to grow exponentially alongside <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-educators-blinkered-to-online-opportunity-robb-10189">aspirant middle classes</a>.</p>
<p>With MOOCs, rich students from poor regions can earn degrees from premier providers from the “comfort” of their own homes. In the future they may even interact with others through <a href="http://www.doublerobotics.com/">iPad Doubles</a> (see video below). But at the moment this interaction mostly occurs in chatrooms and quizzes. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/47000322" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This is wheelie neat. doublerobotics.com.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Face-to-face tuition could become a luxury commodity. University senior executives and policymakers need to consider this conundrum in how to target infrastructure, tuition, graduate placement, student experience and — much less publicised — pathways to residency.</p>
<h2>A Better Life Through Mobility</h2>
<p>There is a very good reason universities and policymakers are so far unfazed by MOOCs. They recognise that for international students the fantasy of self-betterment through a combination of learning and mobility is what motivates them to study abroad.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15715/original/dgvn8cz5-1348153889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian University Games advertisement for international students.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Universities are well aware of how much the dream of migration means to international students. They make significant investments in global road shows, which trumpet residency pathways, exchange programs and visa sponsorship deals in order to attract enrolments. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Imagined-Mobility-Migration-Transnationalism-Australia/dp/1843318938">research</a> shows that up to three quarters of the Indian students coming to Australia successfully apply for permanent residency afterwards. Studying in Australia is seen by many as a way to get a residency outside India.</p>
<p>The show goes on despite domestic pressure on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/30/london-metropolitan-university-international-students">incorrect visas</a>, <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/dob-in/">overstayers</a>, <a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hundreds-of-indian-students-implicated-in-fake-work-reference-scam-in-oz/987765/">visa scams</a> and dodgy <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/11/06/idINIndia-43729820091106">colleges</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/wa-news/wa-calls-for-crack-down-on-overseas-university-campuses-student-recruiters-20120702-21dca.html">agents</a>. More worryingly, behind the scenes are exploitative “<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Global-Body-Shopping-Information-Technology/dp/0691118523">bodyshops</a>”.</p>
<p>The issue here is that the dreams of students for a better life through mobility diverge considerably from the dreams of education providers. They want students they can enrol, educate, award and then wave off at the airport. But these students do not just want a quick degree and a short working holiday. </p>
<h2>Hard Truths</h2>
<p>Students often move internationally to escape the hard realities of life in countries such as India. Many are simply seeking amelioration in places with less poverty, greater job prospects, low corruption, better infrastructure, more safety and a higher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index">Human Development Index</a>.</p>
<p>Universities and policymakers dream of knowledge customers buying their prestigious degrees online in a global market divorced from migration. MOOCs seem to be progress in this direction. But for international students MOOCs is a non-issue. </p>
<p>The elephant in the (chat) room is that most international students pay exorbitant fees, undergo complex administration processes, live in austere conditions and satisfy local business demand for poorly regulated informal labour in the dream of a better life. Both the needs of students and providers demand critical thought in debating the future of education.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude on Monday with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part fourteen of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-online-why-universities-need-to-be-knowledge-brokers-10146">Research online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers</a>, Justin O'Brien</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eleven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-at-the-coalface-what-academics-need-to-know-9715">Online education at the coalface: what academics need to know</a>, Rod Lamberts & Will Grant</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part twelve: <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-little-bit-more-conversation-the-limits-of-online-education-9801">A little bit more conversation: the limits of online education</a>, Shirley Alexander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part thirteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-students-want-and-how-universities-are-getting-it-wrong-10000">What students want and how universities are getting it wrong</a>, Alasdair McAndrew</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Birtchnell is currently also a Research Associate at the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), The University of Lancaster and receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Wollongong University’s…Thomas Birtchnell, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Media & Communication, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100002012-10-18T19:26:00Z2012-10-18T19:26:00ZWhat students want and how universities are getting it wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16663/original/4r5ybpcv-1350524268.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5616%2C3480&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online education might not cut it for students who want quality learning and more access to staff.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Student image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Victoria University’s Alasdair McAndrew looks at how the student has been overlooked in the rush to online education.</em></p>
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<p>Do the phrases “blended-learning” and “virtual classrooms” fill you with excitement, or are they the kind of buzzwords that produce a resigned fatigue? </p>
<p>Whether you’re a “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00910.x/pdf">technopositivist</a>” or a “technoskeptic”, it’s clear many universities are getting it wrong when it comes to e-learning – neither considering the needs of the student or the teacher. </p>
<p>They assume a good online education will just happen, and that both staff and students will rapturously embrace these new technologies – whatever the quality of access or learning. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/83033-we-are-stuck-with-technology-when-what-we-really-want">immortal words</a> of author, Douglas Adams: “We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”</p>
<h2>A skeptical eye</h2>
<p>E-learning has been defined by <a href="http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415885836/">D. Randy Garrison</a>: “as electronically mediated asynchronous and synchronous communication for the purposes of constructing and confirming knowledge.” While “electronically” could easily be replaced with “online” – you get the general idea. </p>
<p>Although I love technology and gadgets of all sorts, I am not uncritical of online learning, and remain unconvinced of the grandiose claims made by e-learning proponents.</p>
<p>For a start, there is a widely held assumption that because online learning is “A Good Thing”, all staff and all students will want it and want to embrace it. However, the purported benefits of e-learning for students are balanced out by some serious <a href="http://www.elearning-companion.com/disadvantages-of-online-learning.html">disadvantages</a>, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">problems of access</a>, less time face-to-face with teachers and doubts about its effectiveness.</p>
<h2>Where’s the evidence?</h2>
<p>For the moment, we don’t yet know if online education actually gets students learning. There are hardly any studies which formally evaluate the effectiveness of e-learning on a large scale; almost all consider small sample sizes in a few subjects only, and come to conclusions which generally fall short of being ringing endorsements. </p>
<p>For example, a report of a <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf">large meta-analysis</a> released in 2010 found that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed <em>modestly</em> better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” But this statement was modified further – it was not necessarily the learning environment which was responsible for the “modest” success, but the extra time and attention which came with it. </p>
<p>In a 2009 paper, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3200/JOEB.84.6.374-380">researchers</a> tried to evaluate online education using a set of learning objectives known as <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Taxonomy_of_educational_objectives.html?id=M_fXAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Bloom’s taxonomy</a>. They concluded that “individual and instructional
factors do not have a significant effect on e-learning.” In effect, from their (very small) sample size, they claimed that e-learning was no worse than conventional learning and teaching methods. Again, this is a very meagre claim.</p>
<h2>Better access needed</h2>
<p>Another unfounded assumption is that the institution’s infrastructure will support online education, and that all staff and students will have equal and unfettered access. </p>
<p>However, as has <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">been discussed in this series</a>, not all students have unfettered access to the internet at all times and places. Online learning can easily discriminate between the haves and the have-nots.</p>
<p>Even at my own university, which has a particularly heterogeneous student cohort, there are students (including a prize-winner) who couldn’t afford mobile phones of any sort, and plenty more without smart phones. Many students can only access the internet at the university. </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/30/why-online-education-will-leave-many-students-behind/">plenty of criticism</a> aimed at online courses now for this reason. But the problem will only increase as more students attend <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/university-appeals-to-growing-numbers/story-e6frgcjx-1226460186855">post-secondary education</a>, including those from refugee families and other digitally poor backgrounds.</p>
<h2>What students want</h2>
<p>Remarkably, educational policies are usually written by those who are the most removed from actual teaching. That’s how we get the curious disparity between what students want and need, and what university managers think will be <em>good for them</em>. </p>
<p>Writing in 2009, researchers <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03043797.2010.505279">Limniou and Smith</a> found that staff assumed that online courses would help time-strapped students, and also “strengthen the students’ background knowledge”, whereas students <em>actually</em> wanted more interaction with the teaching staff and more individual feedback. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/what-students-really-think-about-online-learning/">Another recent study</a> of online learning found that students want interaction and personal connection, as well as more use made of mobile devices.</p>
<p>Universities meanwhile have a rather touching faith in videos, and email. But there have been few attempts to encompass mobile technologies, like smart phones, 3G/4G networks. </p>
<p>There is a growing interest in the use of such technology, unfortunately referred to as “m-learning”, but it is as yet in its infancy. </p>
<h2>An academic complaint?</h2>
<p>You might think from much of the above that I’m a reactionary curmudgeon who believes that education has gone downhill since the days of chalk and slates. This is not so. I am a passionate believer in using whatever tools, technology, practices or processes will help to engage students and encourage their learning. </p>
<p>What I don’t believe in is the willy-nilly throwing of technology in the general direction of staff and students, and the totally unfounded assumption that technology, in and of itself, will enhance student learning and engagement.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part thirteen of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-online-why-universities-need-to-be-knowledge-brokers-10146">Research online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers</a>, Justin O'Brien</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eleven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-at-the-coalface-what-academics-need-to-know-9715">Online education at the coalface: what academics need to know</a>, Rod Lamberts & Will Grant</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part twelve: <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-little-bit-more-conversation-the-limits-of-online-education-9801">A little bit more conversation: the limits of online education</a>, Shirley Alexander</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alasdair McAndrew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Victoria University’s…Alasdair McAndrew, Discipline Leader, Mathematics & Physics, College of Engineering and Science, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98012012-10-18T03:33:29Z2012-10-18T03:33:29ZA little bit more conversation: the limits of online education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16638/original/rbf262fk-1350451062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=247%2C591%2C4520%2C1788&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communication is a vital skill for university graduates, but in the move to online education we could be selling students short.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Communication image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Shirley Alexander from UTS looks at the limitations of online learning.</em></p>
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<p>If you have listened to the debate so far about online education, you’d think learning was simply about content. Of course, universities teach the “hard skills” of a particular discipline – what a lawyer knows about law, or an engineer knows about building design.</p>
<p>But the silence on what the transition to online learning will mean for all-important “soft skills” is deafening.</p>
<h2>What are soft skills?</h2>
<p>Soft skills broadly involve communication, social ability, problem solving and other personal traits.</p>
<p>Increasingly, soft skills are high on employer’s check lists. They want university graduates with expertise in their chosen field, who can also communicate well, manage change and think critically. This world of work expects graduates to solve complex problems, and communicate ideas often in global teams across cultures.</p>
<p>It’s a harsh reality but those who have the technical skill but lack this social intelligence will be left behind.</p>
<h2>Discipline-based learning</h2>
<p>Graduates can learn a lot through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other online learning programs. But ultimately, the development of communication skills and many other soft skills is best achieved face-to-face. </p>
<p>At the moment, most universities aim to do this with a “statement of capabilities” – a list of skills from beginning to advance level that students should have achieved by the end of their degree.</p>
<p>Let’s take the soft skill of spoken communication for example. The University of Technology, Sydney’s Faculty of Law has identified advanced communicators as those who are “<a href="http://www.law.uts.edu.au/graduate-attributes/attribute3.html">highly effective in using the English language to convey legal ideas and views to different audiences and environments</a>”. Those with basic skills are able to report back after a court visit for example, while advanced communicators can effectively advocate within a court room setting. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the Faculty of Engineering and IT aims to graduate students who will be competent at working across disciplines to solve a design problem. In this case, students will need to be able to communicate effectively as a “<a href="http://www.feit.uts.edu.au/faculty/graduate-attributes.html">leader of diverse teams within a multi-level, multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural setting.</a>”</p>
<p>Although students in both disciplines are developing spoken communication skills, they are doing so within the specific professional contexts. What is common to both groups is the way in which they progressively develop these skills. First through modelling and looking to others; then through participation in exercises and receiving feedback; then practice and reflection; and finally, assessment.</p>
<h2>Where does online learning fit in?</h2>
<p>Using the example above of the Law program, students might be able to use MOOCS or online learning programs to read about communication in Law and even to watch online videos of highly competent lawyers modelling effective advocacy. But MOOCs cannot allow for students to practise these skills themselves and then to receive feedback on their performance.</p>
<p>For most situations, the nuances of communication mean that the practice should be carried out in the most authentic context possible. In the case of Law for example, most universities have a Moot Court to ensure an authentic experience. Students in Engineering and IT faculties increasingly have access to groupwork rooms that are designed to mirror those in contemporary workplaces.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16648/original/d5z6wjg2-1350511700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of a workspace suited to developing ‘soft skills’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Zhu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Work arounds</h2>
<p>Online courses can only go so far in teaching soft skills to graduates. Students need the opportunity to practise and receive feedback on their performance in an authentic context, by an expert who can provide meaningful feedback. </p>
<p>Some have suggested that online students could submit video performances to groups of online peers who would respond with helpful comments. For this to be effective, peer learners would need to be committed to spending the significant amounts of time necessary to provide such feedback. These peers would also need to have a level of expertise themselves, including the ability to provide useful critique. </p>
<p>Other alternatives might include students seeking this level of feedback from the workplace or other mentors.</p>
<h2>The future of online learning and teaching</h2>
<p>For these reasons, the future of higher education undoubtedly lies in a hybrid learning experience – blending online and face-to-face learning. </p>
<p>Online would work for some parts of a course. For example, engineering students might access personalised learning material, simulations and activities on engineering mechanics or circuit theory.</p>
<p>But on campus, they would engage in social, active learning activities which promote deeper engagement with that content, at the same time as developing soft skills. </p>
<p>These face-to-face learning activities would challenge their current understanding of the world, help them link new concepts to what they already know, and ultimately develop new understandings. </p>
<p>Students’ university experience should play a critical role in the development of these difficult soft skills. Frankly, any university that can be replaced by a MOOC, should be.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part twelve of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-online-why-universities-need-to-be-knowledge-brokers-10146">Research online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers</a>, Justin O'Brien</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eleven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-at-the-coalface-what-academics-need-to-know-9715">Online education at the coalface: what academics need to know</a>, Rod Lamberts & Will Grant</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shirley Alexander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Shirley Alexander from…Shirley Alexander, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Teaching, Learning & Equity), University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97152012-10-17T19:36:49Z2012-10-17T19:36:49ZOnline education at the coalface: what academics need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16621/original/fbscggr6-1350442042.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C23%2C467%2C322&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online education may mean more stress and workload for academics, not less.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stressed academic image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, ANU’s Rod Lamberts and Will Grant look at the issues academics face in the online learning revolution.</em></p>
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<p>Australian academia has not yet come to grips with how best to handle the swings and roundabouts of online education. The full picture is not yet understood, and many of the implications are still being explored (<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">including in this current series</a>).</p>
<p>In the debate around business models and international competition, the teacher can all too easily be left out of the discussion. But academics are the ones who will be at the coalface of online education – so we need to have a say in what happens next.</p>
<h2>24/7 academia</h2>
<p>One of the most pressing concerns in the move to online is the expectation of availability.</p>
<p>Sending an email to a lecturer on Sunday is perfectly reasonable. But is it reasonable to expect a response that same day? We strongly believe it isn’t, but many of our colleagues feel an obligation that trumps their right to non-work time.</p>
<p>The problem of work encroaching into leisure time is not new and not unique to academia, but with the rise and rise of online education, there are now more ways than ever for this to occur.</p>
<p>If we have a customer service mindset (as is increasingly common in the sector), then we should be available whenever we are in demand. However, this change in student expectations is not being met with commensurate changes in work place conditions and expectations. </p>
<p>If we decide not to run with a customer-service model (although arguably that horse has well-and truly bolted…), then expectations need to be set out clearly, and be understood and agreed to by all parties – students, staff, and university executives.</p>
<h2>Online workloads</h2>
<p>In the early days of online education at our university, people often talked of “just putting a course online”. The implication – indeed expectation – was that you “just” grabbed existing lectures and readings and “posted them on the web”. Assessment just somehow translated across, and if you had labs or tutorials, you just worked out how to do them online. </p>
<p>There was also a common understanding, apparently, that running a one semester course online was easier – in fact constituted less work – than doing a face-to-face version of the same course.</p>
<p>Sadly, we still hear both of these misconceptions. But we know very well that they’re a load of bollocks.</p>
<p>In fact there is often more work associated with online education than a traditional course. Take an online discussion board as compared to a face-to-face tutorial for example.</p>
<p>Moderating a two-hour classroom discussion between, say, 15 (or even 30) students in a physical classroom takes 2 hours. Moderating an online equivalent for the same 15 students takes immeasurably more time. </p>
<p>You have to read all student comments, consider all the responses to these comments in the potentially multiple discussion threads, and offer meaningful, contextually relevant and useful input for each student involved. </p>
<p>We guarantee this is not a two-hour job.</p>
<h2>Innovation the answer?</h2>
<p>Of course, people increasingly cry, the solution is to be innovative in your delivery and course structure so that you take advantage of the opportunities that online education avails us.</p>
<p>Wonderful in theory, but let’s test this in practice.</p>
<p>First, the technology required to support true interactive online classroom discussion – that is, simulate a face-to-face classroom experience - is expensive, complicated, and rare. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to put the basic infrastructure into a classroom that seats 30 students, and this is not including the need for large bandwith, reliable connections, and students who have a suitable infrastructure at their end.</p>
<p>Second, tertiary education institutions have a lot of bureaucratic inertia. Major changes to a course might take 12-18 months to work their way through university approval processes. This is an eternity – if not two or three eternities – in cyberspace. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the platforms and tools for delivery are constantly changing at a pace that larger organisations are currently ill-equipped to manage.</p>
<p>Third, as lecturers we are usually obliged to use prescribed platforms (e.g. WebCT, BlackBoard, or Moodle) to create, deliver and manage our online offerings. It’s also worth noting that institutionally adopted tools are often far less intuitive to use than commercially focused competitors. </p>
<p>Even ignoring that ours may not be the best tools for the job, the time it takes to become adept in their use is not genuinely factored into workloads.</p>
<p>Yes, training is available in these platforms, but that just means we must de-prioritise something else to be able to attend them.</p>
<h2>Problematic pedagogy</h2>
<p>OK then, what about pedagogical implications?</p>
<p>The single most touted advantage of online education that gets rolled out regularly is that it increases access. More students have more access to more educational opportunities and from more institutions than ever before. And this is increasing at a phenomenal – and also laudable – rate. </p>
<p>Hard to argue with that kind of “opportunities for all” philosophy.</p>
<p>We can’t let all the details go unchallenged, though. There are aspects of online educational offerings that arguably provide diminished versions of face-to-face options. It would be remiss to not consider if it is better to have more people accessing lesser products, or fewer having access to the best?</p>
<p>For example, interacting with teachers and peers online via text-based conversations and asynchronously delivered material diminishes the experience that real-life interactions provide. Nuance, tone and body language are all lost.</p>
<p>People also learn by modelling behaviours – echoing other students – which once again is harder to do without direct interaction.</p>
<p>In a discipline like ours – science communication – learning, practising and receiving feedback on presentations is essential. We currently have no way to remotely simulate that in-the-flesh experience with an audience</p>
<p>We also know anecdotally that lecturers in areas that handle politically or socially more volatile subject matter are becoming more reluctant to share their thoughts and expert opinions in fear of these being taken out of context once they are released into cyberspace.</p>
<p>Students in such courses are getting sanitised content and a diminished experience because of the mere thought of online dissemination.</p>
<h2>A better way</h2>
<p>The view isn’t all bleak.</p>
<p>But we all know criticism is easy, and we are well aware that we could rightly be labeled as whining, recidivist academics (so far). So here are a few suggestions.</p>
<p>First, there’s no point in putting our fingers in our ears and making “la la la” noises whenever online education rears its head. The online educational environment, and incumbent student and managerial expectations, are well and truly here. We need to work out how to do it well for all parties.</p>
<p>We need to enhance institutional capacity to respond quickly to changing platforms and cyberspace trends. This must include systems allowing flexibility in platform choices. The current system where IT bureaucrats decide on single packages and platforms must be put out of our misery.</p>
<p>It’s critical to provide academics, technical staff and administrators reasonable time, resources and flexibility not to just come to grips with new techniques and tools, but to explore, learn about, and master them. This is no passing trend, and like anything complex, there is no long term advantage in taking shortcuts.</p>
<p>We should explore novel revenue avenues and disconnect from the old-fashioned, pay-for-course models that will struggle to cope with burgeoning online educational offerings that are available cheaply, or even free. It used to be said there’s no way to make money on the internet. It seems Google and Amazon didn’t get that memo.</p>
<p>Smart partnering will be essential in blazing a successful trail through the cyber-education-sphere too, and this will probably need to be linked to more sophisticated and routine use of crowd-sourcing. There’s no point in railing against Wikipedia and online collaboration. It’s here and it’s being used. Embrace it, adapt (to) it.</p>
<p>With well-researched, clearly articulated guidelines and resources in place, we academics can far more effectively explore the best ways to connect with our current and future students.</p>
<p>But, there is one more thing to consider before closing. Heretical and anti-progress though this may sound, there is nothing wrong with being a little circumspect about this online bandwagon. </p>
<p>Sometimes it will be right and proper to declare a course, a skill, a knowledge set or an experience suitable for the online world, but some won’t. We need to choose courses carefully before we put an “e” in front of their name.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part eleven of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-online-why-universities-need-to-be-knowledge-brokers-10146">Research online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers</a>, Justin O'Brien</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Lamberts has received funding from The Australian Research Council. He is a founding partner of the Ångstrom Group.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will J Grant is a founding partner of the Ångstrom Group.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, ANU’s Rod Lamberts and…Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityWill J Grant, Researcher / Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101462012-10-17T03:54:50Z2012-10-17T03:54:50ZResearch online: why universities need to be knowledge brokers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16568/original/t4vkn4nk-1350357288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4748%2C2885&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">University research is online but can they communicate it better?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Online image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, UNSW’s Justin O'Brien looks at ways universities can improve their online research presence.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>It is clear that the mass of priceless research carried out by universities needs to find its way to the public and to policy makers. The issue is how to get it there.</p>
<p>On the face of it the internet provides the obvious solution and it is logical that universities go online to share their research.</p>
<p>The benefits can be enormous.</p>
<p>The disintegration of media financing models and the threatened implosion of much of the mainstream media adds a sense of urgency to a recalibration of academic research. The provision of high-quality research that simultaneously informs and influences the trajectory of increasingly polarised, partisan debate has become an imperative not least because the online environment privileges free comment over rigorous analysis – now often hidden behind paywalls.</p>
<p>But many of our most highly powered institutions are setting out onto this intergalactic highway system using the cyber equivalent of horse and cart technology.</p>
<p>Look closely into the online research presence of most major Australian academic institutions and you can see the weaknesses. While home pages have become marginally more inviting, delve deeper and one finds how unidimensional, reactive and unengaged a large proportion of university sites remain.</p>
<h2>Room for improvement</h2>
<p>We hear constantly of the threats posed by the online environment. For universities and researchers, multimedia platforms bring much needed sunlight into the lecture theatre and impose an enhanced degree of accountability, which if not managed, could be a problem for already fragile academic ecosystems.</p>
<p>Increasingly students will make their choices on the basis of how they view the performance of academics, and be attracted to institutions with what Google <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/unis-to-face-high-degree-of-change-in-mobile-era-20121012-27iae.html">describes</a> as “rockstar professors”.</p>
<p>In such an environment, satisfying student experience necessitates enormous investment in media and online training; not just for dissemination of academic knowledge to outside providers but for the academic institution itself.</p>
<h2>Knowledge brokers</h2>
<p>There are threats in this paradigm shift to online but there are also opportunities for universities. The requirement of major funding agencies such as the Australian Research Council for evidence of impact and outcomes has little to do with increased managerialism, symbolism or curtailment of academic blue-sky thinking.</p>
<p>It is a reflection that the old funding model and associated key performance indicators for universities are no longer fit for purpose.</p>
<p>The academy, therefore, has a vital role as well as responsibility to act as a knowledge broker. But the fact is to be a knowledge broker in the 21st century, you need to be online.</p>
<h2>An online presence</h2>
<p>For the future of higher education research, universities need web portals that take advantage of the online world to create a global community. If this is done well, regulators, policymakers, practitioners and other academics will know about your research and it will provide real impact.</p>
<p>The Centre for Law, Markets and Regulation, which I direct, provides a good example of how this process can be managed. Its has a <a href="http://www.clmr.unsw.edu.au/">multimedia platform</a> that maps and tracks regulatory developments across a broad range of financial markets with a fully searchable database.</p>
<p>A university’s online research presence should be aiming to provide a resource like this, which is as useful to practitioners as it is to the academy. They need to consider relevance, timeliness and be optimised for different modes of delivery – particularly mobile. They should also use different formats to get their research out there – opinion pieces, audio podcast and video interviews are just some examples. And finally, universities should use their research presence online to convene workshops and conferences in partnership with government or industry.</p>
<p>If done well, the university can significantly enhance the viability and leveraging power of its research agenda.</p>
<h2>Brave leaps forward</h2>
<p>This approach is not, however, for the faint-hearted. It necessitates initial substantial and ongoing investment to build and maintain an online presence. It necessitates media and industry partnerships that take time to cultivate. </p>
<p>And it is predicated on the building of global academic alliances, which to be effective need face-to-face contact between academics, industry leaders and policy makers.</p>
<p>The rewards, however, are substantial. Your research presence can facilitate a dialogue that adds to the quality of public discourse. And it can help inform the content of academic courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as executive programs.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the resource has the potential to be monetized, although our intention with our research site is to always make it free for academic users.</p>
<p>With much to gain, it’s time for universities and their researchers to finally break free from a closed world of knowledge and embrace the openess of online.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part ten of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769">The university campus of the future: what will it look like?</a>, David Lamond</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin O'Brien receives funding from the Australian Research Council for four grants related to corporate governance, financial regulation and accountable governance, including an ARC Future Fellowship. This opinion is simultaneously published on an online portal that maps and tracks regulatory reform in the aftermath of the GFC - <a href="http://www.clmr.unsw.edu.au">www.clmr.unsw.edu.au</a>. </span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, UNSW’s Justin O'Brien…Justin O'Brien, Professor of Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97692012-10-16T19:01:08Z2012-10-16T19:01:08ZThe university campus of the future: what will it look like?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16511/original/36w6xykc-1350265078.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C634&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities campuses need to adapt to the new reality of mobile students and online education.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Jill</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today Victoria University’s David Lamond looks at how online education will change the university campus.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Article after article on online education predicts that bricks and mortar universities are set to be replaced by “clicks and mortar.”</p>
<p>The sudden popularity of the MOOC (or Massive Open Online Course) – where brand name universities offer the same courses available to fee paying students for free, online – has seen some experts question the need for university campuses at all. </p>
<p>While it may be a little premature to write off the need for a campus entirely, there’s no doubt online mobile education is set to radically alter university architecture.</p>
<h2>Exaggerated warnings</h2>
<p>For those with long memories, the predictions of empty universities may sound familiar. In the 1990s, the same was said about the demise of the central business district (CBD). With teleworkers working from home and sending the fruits of their labour across the internet, the CBD would become redundant.</p>
<p>Of course, these prophecies were proved greatly exaggerated. </p>
<p>There are two significant reasons why the university campus, like the CBD, will survive. First, humans are social and political animals that need spaces to interact with each other. Just as Facebook and Twitter have not stopped people congregating in public places to socialise, online education won’t mean students will stop going to a university space to learn.</p>
<p>Second is the University Vice-Chancellor’s edifice complex – a “my building is bigger than your building” mentality. Universities will continue to compete to attract students and academics by building ever more impressive facilities.</p>
<h2>What’s needed</h2>
<p>But how should university campuses change given the new dynamics of online education? And can the edifice complex – the desire for great spaces – be harnessed to create a learning environment fit for the 21st century?</p>
<p>Let me say first of all that I welcome the transformation that is set to take place in university learning and the new ideas, technologies and opportunities that it will bring.</p>
<p>Physical changes can help enhance this learning experience and universities will start to compete to offer more and more technologically and student friendly spaces.</p>
<p>A step in the right direction has been the creation of collaborative learning spaces, most often referred to as “learning commons”. These spaces are much more suited to the new dynamics of online and student-centred learning than the lecture theatre. </p>
<p>The lecture theatre supports a one-way style of teaching, where learning commons provide a space for dialogue.</p>
<p>Learning commons are also able to take advantage of mobile IT capacities and wireless connectivity. These new learning spaces need to be populated not by whiteboards, but by electrical outlets and USB ports to enable individuals or groups to interact using laptops and iPads, incorporating a variety of audio-visual equipment, and interactive displays.</p>
<p>Along with learning commons and fewer large lecture theatres, universities also need broadcast studios. Broadcast studios are essential for developing video content for virtual classrooms, framed by the screens of laptops and desktops, in situ and on the move. </p>
<h2>Future universities</h2>
<p>If universities are to be the future of education rather than relics of the past, they do not need to have a campus on every corner but, rather, be accessible wherever our learners are, at times and in forms to meet their learning, social and psychological needs. </p>
<p>Above all else, students must be at the centre of this new architecture. We should welcome the MOOCs challenge as an opportunity to create the virtual and physical learning spaces of the future.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part nine of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadset-moocs-and-australian-education-in-a-globalised-world-9723">Deadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world</a>, Ruth Morgan</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lamond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today Victoria University’s David…David Lamond, Adjunct Professor of HRM & International Business, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97232012-10-16T03:21:58Z2012-10-16T03:21:58ZDeadset? MOOCs and Australian education in a globalised world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16048/original/pzkp9mzr-1349068938.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C995%2C637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian humanities subjects need to get on board with MOOCs and develop Australian voices in online learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">World image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today Ruth Morgan looks at the cultural dimension of online education and where Australian history fits in.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, allow students to choose from a host of courses from leading experts for free online. A veritable smorgasbord of learning awaits the online student, or so it would seem.</p>
<p>But look closer and ask yourself, how much choice is really on offer?</p>
<p>Last month, Professor Simon Marginson <a href="http://theconversation.com/online-open-education-yes-this-is-the-game-changer-8078">warned</a> that for all the excitement over this new paradigm, “MOOCs mean the homogenisation of knowledge, learning and culture”. After all, at this stage many of these courses are based at American Ivy League universities, offering their particular view and course content.</p>
<p>How then will the rise of online education affect how courses about Australia, its peoples, politics and histories, are taught? </p>
<h2>An Australian perspective</h2>
<p>Australian universities are now just beginning to develop their own MOOCs – largely courses with a global focus – but American MOOCs still dominate.</p>
<p>Already online education has brought its own kind of cultural cringe – we assume if it’s from overseas, it must be better. As Communications Minister Stephen Conroy put it <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-must-adapt-education-models-conroy-9848">earlier this month</a>, “What is a lecture worth if the best lecturer in the world at MIT is online for free for all to access?” </p>
<p>In some cases this might be true, but there are many subject areas, particularly in the humanities where Australian students need local knowledge and understanding. Indeed, why would MIT or any American university offer courses that focus exclusively on Australia’s Federation in 1901 or its development during the nineteenth century?</p>
<p>Having an Australian voice in Australian education is an important asset. And whether you are a student of the sciences or the humanities, mathematics or philosophy, your teacher will leave an imprint of their background, principles and worldview in the way they convey their course. </p>
<p>As an historian, far be it from me to gaze into a crystal ball, but there are some clues about the future implications of online education for humanities students, or at least for the teaching and learning of Australian history.</p>
<h2>The future of Australian history</h2>
<p>Recently, there have been questions raised about the future of Australian history as a national project and as a field of scholarly research. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, higher education commentators <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/why-our-historys-losing-its-lustre/story-e6frgcko-1226291036958">observed</a> the decline of undergraduate enrolments in Australian history, such that some universities had considerably reduced their offerings in the field. </p>
<p>Australian historians, too, are changing their outlook and increasingly looking at their research in broader terms – weaving Australian stories into larger global tapestries.</p>
<p>But neither of these trends signals the demise of Australian history: often students gravitate towards Australian history in their later studies, while Australian readers voraciously consume books about the nation’s past.</p>
<h2>MOOCing Australian subjects</h2>
<p>Although there are questions about the US dominance of MOOCs so far, there may also be opportunities here for Australian historians and humanities teachers. By definition, MOOCS are very “open” and could help present the growing transnational, global and comparative approaches in Australian history to students both at home and abroad. </p>
<p>In doing so, these online courses might attract new audiences to Australian voices and stories, which could provide Antipodean insights into global issues and debates.</p>
<p>But just as “face to face” teaching and learning in the bricks and mortar university requires a consideration of both course content and its communication, so too does its online delivery. This approach requires more imaginative approaches than simply making “chalk and talk” lecture recordings available online. </p>
<p>Already the move towards applying national standards to the teaching of tertiary-level history has encouraged greater scholarly engagement with the ways that the discipline is taught in Australian universities. In online learning too, we need the same examination of pedagogy and teaching quality.</p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>In light of government and institution budget pressures, it is not surprising that many academics view this brave new world of online learning with some anxiety. They can take some relief in the views of Professor Stephen King, who <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-will-mean-the-death-of-universities-not-likely-8830">recently argued that</a>, “The internet will augment but not replace the face-to-face experience”. </p>
<p>For the humanities, this face to face experience can not be substituted. It is only there that the teacher and students can engage directly with each other, the course material and the events of the day, and in doing so, take part in the intellectual discussions and debates that shape their discipline and our nation.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Australian historians need to look closely at how we teach the skills of the historian, of historical thinking, research and writing in the online environment and investigate how online and face-to-face learning can complement each other.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>,<a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>This is part eight of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-learning-will-change-universities-by-degrees-9804">Online learning will change universities by degrees</a>, Margaret Gardner</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today Ruth Morgan looks at the…Ruth Morgan, Lecturer in Australian History, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98042012-10-15T19:08:12Z2012-10-15T19:08:12ZOnline learning will change universities by degrees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16395/original/bbdxj637-1349914936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1000%2C661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Quality education which is free online may only affect some parts of the higher education sector.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laptop image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today RMIT’s Vice Chancellor, Mararet Gardner looks at how online education will affect different parts of higher education.</em></p>
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<p>New technologies and online learning are set to transform universities bringing an era of great change. But as we struggle to understand exactly what and how much disruption we will experience – and how soon – we need to also understand that change won’t be uniform across the sector. </p>
<p>With so many different sectors in tertiary education, the challenge created by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – free online courses offered by prestigious universities – will be more immediately important for some more than others.</p>
<h2>Real disruption</h2>
<p>The debate to date has mades it seem that the large-scale online free courses known as MOOCs, will affect every element of what universities offer. And underlying this debate is fear. Will there be fewer universities as we now know them? Undoubtedly, yes.</p>
<p>These fears about online learning and recognising their potential have been around for a while, but have reignited since we added “massive” and “open” to online learning. When enrolments started to be measured in the tens of thousands and the courses offered at Harvard, MIT and Stanford were available for free, online education enhanced its reputation and increased its scale.</p>
<p>The discussions between supporters of an online learning future and sceptics are often working on the assumption that the traditional university degree will be the most affected. But I expect that this will not be the major market in which online will make greatest inroads first. I propose three areas where online will change the game quickly.</p>
<p>The first is the short vocational qualification; particularly where there is a need to demonstrate mastery for compliance purposes. Demand here is for the accredited qualification (not a whole learning or career-defining experience). </p>
<p>The second is the comparatively short (12 months or so) postgraduate qualification. Postgraduate students are often time poor, challenged by the demands of their job and/or family circumstances. Being able to be on campus and in class is their challenge. </p>
<p>For many postgraduate qualifications, they are often looking for specific learning outcomes or a career change. And with this group, flexibility is as important as quality. Online has the capacity to deliver a flexible, quality, reliable educational program in a way that many on-campus programs cannot.</p>
<p>The third area is the taster or short course. This enables all types of people to dabble in a particular subject for interest or when they are looking to study in this field. Most enrolments in MOOCs are of this third type, which is why few people complete a subject or seek assessment or accreditation.</p>
<h2>Online challenges</h2>
<p>Successful online education for whole programs over many years in the manner a typical undergraduate or professional degree face a series of challenges. </p>
<p>First is building an experience that will keep students engaged and learning over an extended period. This kind of high-level engagement online is possible, all you need to do is look at the gamer community. But the engagement relies on high investment in online interactive resources and therefore will need high numbers of students.</p>
<p>The second is integrity of assessment. At the moment, the only real solution is on site in-person examinations. This is not the rich learning experience that good quality assessment provides – there is no learning by doing in this type of assessment. </p>
<p>This challenge is less important where less complex assessment is required. And it’s worth remembering that much assessment in traditional courses is already submitted and returned online.</p>
<p>The third is recognition of qualifications. An online program needs to offer an “accredited” qualification that is recognised by governments and/or employers. Only the short interest course is exempt from this.</p>
<p>The fourth is the informal learning that comes from hanging about on campus, being part of clubs or teams or chatting over coffee or a beer to discuss life. The way informal learning occurs on and around campus is a big part of the career and sometimes life-defining experience of an undergraduate or professional degree.</p>
<p>From the TV show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439629/">Community</a>, which portrays a mature age group of community college students, to the tropes of every movie that show Harvard or Oxford in action, it is this life that dominates our imagination about what a great education will be.</p>
<h2>Coming soon…</h2>
<p>Much on-campus education is already blended – meaning online resources, formative quizzes and capture and replay of lectures are blended with an on-campus experience with hundreds, not tens of thousands, of students. </p>
<p>The blend will change quickly as better resources can be found. But online learning will have to meet some of the challenges above, before we can declare the traditional degree, as we know it, gone for good.</p>
<p>So in terms of immediate disruptive potential, the short course, exemplified in MOOCs, is off and running. Short vocational and many short postgraduate qualifications can, with the right investment in quality resources and systems and accreditation, sweep large parts of on-campus provision away quickly. </p>
<p>Online learning will disrupt, but it is where and how it will disrupt that is vital to the debate we need to have.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The series will conclude next week with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>Leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>,<a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
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<p><strong>This is part seven of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-education-can-we-bridge-the-digital-divide-9725">Online education: can we bridge the digital divide?</a>, Tim Pitman</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Gardner is currently a Director on the Board of Open Universities Australia (OUA), in which RMIT University is a shareholder. OUA offers online undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from a number of Australian universities.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today RMIT’s Vice Chancellor…Margaret Gardner, Vice-Chancellor, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97252012-10-14T19:20:16Z2012-10-14T19:20:16ZOnline education: can we bridge the digital divide?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16237/original/grnxxxgs-1349411207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C115%2C3168%2C2050&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some people could be left behind in the digital revolution in higher education.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Divide image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Tim Pitman writes on who has access to this online education revolution.</em></p>
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<p>Online learning divides opinion like few other issues in the world of higher education.</p>
<p>But regardless of whether you think this is a good or bad thing, there is no escaping the fact it is here to stay. </p>
<p>Despite claims about the democratisation of education through free online university courses and open educational resources, some potential students are being left on the wrong side of the digital divide. </p>
<p>Learners need not only the physical connections to the internet and appropriate hardware, but also the familiarity with technology to make online learning work. </p>
<p>Universities and governments need to do more to improve access to these resources or risk leaving some of the most disadvantaged students behind. </p>
<h2>Uneven connections</h2>
<p>Australians are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/4102.0main+features60jun+2011">connecting more and more</a>. In the ten years between 1998 and 2008, home internet access increased dramatically - and it’s still climbing. </p>
<p>But the increase is not equally distributed. In households without children, access has gone from fewer than one in five households to three in five. But in households with children it has risen even higher - almost four in five. </p>
<p>The new generation of students is more connected than the Baby Boomer generation. But even within this generation, there are huge differences in the quality of access.</p>
<p>Those with parents in the top 20% of income earners will almost certainly have the internet at home. But if parental income is in the bottom 20%, almost half won’t. They may still have access at school or universities but this is not the same as having consistent access.</p>
<p>Indigenous students, for example, are relatively well connected (69% usage) but are much more reliant on using computers at school than other groups. They don’t enjoy the consistent access required to make the most of online educational opportunities.</p>
<h2>Digital division</h2>
<p>There is no escaping the fact there is a digital divide. The government has <a href="http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/shared/docs/national_vet_elearning_strategy_2012_2015_web.pdf">recognised this</a> and is trying to develop e-learning strategies, particularly in vocational education and training, for groups like Indigenous students, people with a disability and the unemployed. </p>
<p>But there are many other groups, including rural and remote learners, isolated metropolitan learners and people with poor English literacy skills that also require assistance.</p>
<p>Every group requires a different approach. Steps are already being taken to address diverse needs but it is already easy to see where mistakes could be made.</p>
<p>A common goal is good, a common strategy is not. Indigenous communities, for example, require a more nuanced approach than simple a one-size-fits-all policy. Indigenous people are no more <a href="http://www.avetra.org.au/documents/PA045Eagles.pdf">homogeneous</a> than anyone else. </p>
<p>The same is true for the other target groups. </p>
<h2>All our digital eggs in one basket</h2>
<p>Governments must be wary of being locked into one delivery mode. When the government made the commitment to give a “<a href="http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/ComputerFund/Pages/NationalSecondarySchoolComputerFundOverview.aspx">laptop for every child</a>” it actually meant laptops for schools – a place children spend less and less of their learning time.</p>
<p>Governments and universities must understand that online learning needs to omnipresent, preferably 24/7 and available on as many devices as possible, to meet the diverse geographical, cultural and resource needs of our students. </p>
<p>Government has got it right with the <a href="http://www.nbn.gov.au">National Broadband Network</a>: it provides the essential service of fast, widespread broadband access and leaves it to individual users and/or organisations to decide how best to exploit it for their own needs.</p>
<p>Flexible learning demands that governments and educational institutions at all levels engage directly with target communities, giving them the required resources, yet allowing the freedom them to use the resources to meet specific needs. </p>
<h2>A right to online learning?</h2>
<p>Online learning can address some forms of educational inequity, but it can also perpetuate others. </p>
<p>We risk repeating the mistakes of the past and perpetuating educational inequity. Like access to <a href="http://www.theeducationinstitute.edu.au/eduinstitute/sites/default/files/Choice-vouchers-and-the-consequences.pdf">private schooling</a>, online learning comes with a cost barrier. Those who can afford smarter technology, better and faster connectivity and 24-hour access will benefit while those who can’t, will not enjoy the same quality of access.</p>
<p>We have to decide, as a society, whether high-quality online learning is a privilege or a fundamental right.</p>
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<p><em>The series will conclude later this month with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
<p><em>Leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>,<a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
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<p><strong>This is part six of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737">Radical rethink: how to design university courses in the online</a>, Paul Wappett</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Pitman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Tim Pitman writes on who…Tim Pitman, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97372012-10-11T19:55:16Z2012-10-11T19:55:16ZRadical rethink: how to design university courses in the online age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16169/original/j35rsjj3-1349322833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5080%2C3186&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online learning has shown a better way to design courses.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">University image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: The rise of online and blended learning and the development of free online courses is set to transform the higher education sector. We’ve asked our authors how to remake the university sector so it can best respond to this revolution.</em> </p>
<p><em>For two weeks, we’ll be running a selection of their responses. The series will conclude later this month with a panel discussion in Canberra co-hosted with the Office for Learning and Teaching and involving the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans.</em></p>
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<p>Time will tell whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) represent a tidal shift in the way students consume and experience education. But the free online courses have already spurred something very positive – teachers and academics are radically rethinking the way courses are designed and are looking to technology to see how teaching can be improved. </p>
<p>Even if in no other way MOOCs prove durable, these shifts in unit design should become the new standard, regardless of whether courses are taught online or face-to-face.</p>
<h2>Traditional problems</h2>
<p>MOOCs are courses available for free online from some of the world’s best known universities – they’re revolutionary in many ways but above all, they are leading the way in course design.</p>
<p>Traditionally, academic staff have designed courses within the construct of the semester system. In a 12 week semester, subject content is generally broken down into one or two face-to-face lectures per week that, depending on the discipline, may be accompanied by one or more tutorials or laboratory sessions. </p>
<p>So, academic staff generally design and develop 24 lectures at around an hour long. Each student encounters the same 24 lectures at the same pace, in the same sequence. The constraints of the lecture process means there is little opportunity for students’ exploration of the material; instead, students write, type or record the material presented and retrieve the material later when they are looking to study for the exam. </p>
<p>But there are problems with this approach. First, it assumes that the student cohort is all the same. But we know that different students bring different experience, intuition, discipline, motivation and ability to the table. </p>
<p>For any one or combination of these reasons, some students may struggle to comprehend a notion taught in week two that might be critical to understanding the material that follows, but the lecturer doesn’t necessarily get to see that lack of understanding until the final exam. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16285/original/ppgn4st3-1349672031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Figure 1: Traditional model for unit design and delivery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Open Universities Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, when the lecturer prescribes a textbook to reinforce and expand upon the material presented in class, the lecturer has no way of knowing whether students have bought the textbook, or taken it out of its packaging, or are reading it at the prescribed pace or in the prescribed sequence, or whether they understand the material contained in it. </p>
<p>As a result, in a traditionally designed course there are few signposts as to how a student is progressing.</p>
<h2>A new way</h2>
<p>Online delivery, though, provides the opportunity to take an entirely new approach. Instead of 24 lectures, great online lecturers prepare around 400 sessions, eight to 10 minutes long, ending with a short quiz. Students’ answers to those quizzes determine which part of the course they progress to next. </p>
<p>So, students doing the same unit will start at the same point, but their journey through the material will be entirely different; some will need to interact with every one of the presentations while others may need to interact with far fewer of them. And students may interact with the same number of presentations, but in an entirely different sequence. </p>
<p>In this mode, students’ experience is completely personal and adaptive to the way in which they are learning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16284/original/5jpb7b9q-1349671858.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Figure 2: Unit design in the online world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Open Universities Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Online, you also have the great benefit of more information about how an individual student is progressing. The emerging science of learning analytics means a unit designed in a particular way will reveal that, say, a student who fails to successfully complete a component by the end of week 3 is 65% more likely to fail than another student who has successfully completed that component.</p>
<p>Teaching and support staff can essentially pinpoint the moment before the student starts to fail and intervene to stop it happening. With appropriate resourcing, we can find out exactly what is preventing the student from being able to successfully progress through the material: is it motivation, work pressures, personal issues, or that the student just doesn’t understand the material? </p>
<p>In the traditional model, teachers wouldn’t know there was a problem until it was too late and the student had already failed the exam. But in this alternative model, much more information is available.</p>
<h2>Seeing things differently</h2>
<p>Changing course design also changes how we see the student. Students are not then just empty vessels into which we pour information on the assumption that it will turn into knowledge. But instead we can give individual learners, who learn in different ways and at different speeds and via different paths, a better chance at learning. </p>
<p>If implemented widely, this will lead to far better learning outcomes for a wider range of students (without compromising standards) and also – unashamedly – to far better financial returns for both the institution and the government’s investment in funding access to education.</p>
<h2>Research vs teaching</h2>
<p>So, why isn’t this already widespread? The answers are not straightforward, but part of the answer lies in the fact that for the majority of university staff it has been too daunting or challenging to radically change the design and delivery of units. And, importantly, the incentives to make these changes are, frankly, not there. </p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.open.edu.au/oua/cole/">research into online learning</a> can help with the former, the issue of incentives is more complex. Remuneration and promotions are tied predominantly to research outputs, and teaching and learning are seen as being of secondary importance. </p>
<p>In such circumstances, it is difficult to see why lecturers would invest time and effort in developing content in a completely different way. This is the major challenge that universities, unions and the government will have to come grips with if we want to improve student learning. </p>
<p><em>We’d love you to take part: leave your comments, join the discussion on <a href="http://twitter.com/conversationEDU">twitter.com/conversationEDU</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/conversationEDU">facebook.com/conversationEDU</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>This is part five of our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/future-of-higher-education">Future of Higher Education</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-opportunities-digital-innovation-or-death-through-regulation-9736">Online opportunities: digital innovation or death through regulation?</a>, Jane Den Hollander</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/moocs-and-exercise-bikes-more-in-common-than-youd-think-9726">MOOCs and exercise bikes – more in common than you’d think</a>, Phillip Dawson & Robert Nelson</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australian-universities-can-play-in-the-moocs-market-9735">How Australian universities can play in the MOOCs market</a>, David Sadler</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/mooc-and-youre-out-of-a-job-uni-business-models-in-danger-9738">MOOC and you’re out of a job: uni business models in danger</a>, Mark Gregory</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Wappett works for Open Universities Australia.</span></em></p>FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: The rise of online and blended learning and the development of free online courses is set to transform the higher education sector. We’ve asked our authors how to remake the…Paul Wappett, Chief Executive Officer, Open Universities AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.