I have grave concerns around you contention that networking (face to face) is not a necessary precurser to successful employment and ongoing professional success. Peers and collegues from Conferences and the access to keynote speakers and presenters, the best in their fields and areas of expertise are one major benefit of the on campus experience , as are access to employers through Graduate Recruitment days. I shudder to think that we are moving towards a time when employers hire only from CVs and supposed University reputations. It also worries me that social networking may be the way to ensure access to employers. This to me gives rise to fears of nepotism. I feel that this is not an either/or equation for higher education modes of delivery; the research must be into both, and not via a cost benefit analysis only.

Good analogy... who ensures the managers and decision makers are competent let alone experts?

Pity more employers didn't look more critically at the job applicants rather than the CV University Brands.

I don't really see how it is any better suited to post-graduate research.

You still have the issue of access to equipment for fields like Engineering and Science. Ultimately, as technology progresses, the issue of equipment access might diminish, but i think we are a way off having currently (multi) million dollar research equipment being made available to someone in their house. It also doesn't make sense to spread research funding across multiple individuals when you could give a larger amount to a group who could build/buy a common piece of equipment and share it at an institution.

In 2012 I researched the HDR student experience around Australia and this very issue of "horses for courses" came through very strongly, particularly with off campus respondents. The data is there if any Government wishes to research student needs and preferences but with the demise of the ALTC and the new replacement not completely operational and the competitive funding model ensuring that each area of educational research compete with each other for funds, we will not have the necessary research into student engagement, experiences and outcomes to compare all modes of delivery. As pointed out earlier, in another posting, the administrations are hyping and indeed barracking for the MOOC model seeing it as the panacea to rising costs of face to face teaching. This must become an area of research priority. We can lead the world in this respect Mr Robb. Globally this shift in educational paradigm is being mobilised and at who's expense?

The debate goes on...meanwhile our teaching academics are facing lecture groups up to 600, online cohorts also in the 100s, tutorials if that's what they can be called these days up to 35, and the justifiably unpopular need to relyon group
assessment tasks. I have nothing against the democratisation of higher education and support anything to ensure equity of access but hold on... equity and access is an issue on Campus also. Many face to face students choose that mode as they perceive their need to be more intensive and more guided with mentoring, academic support and human interaction allowing for a unique learning experience. That is how Universities first came about... learning at the feet (literally) of the learned. And what is the corollary to this effective devaluing of the role of teaching academics? Students and staff feeling like they are part of a Ford-ist production line of standardised products generating profits for the Universities investment funds. We hear so often about the cross subsidisation of University research and the research staff salaries from the teaching division but if that were in fact true, why are research staff always on tenuos contracts, spending months and indeed years (in workload time) filling in and complying with constantly changing pre-conditions for competitive research funding. It is becoming a situation of wooing Corporate of Private Sector dollars or have no junior research staff and in the most extreme, no research project at all. In the HASS sections of our Universities, you know the ones that investigate the major social concerns of our own Country, it has become a find the cash to keep your job. Is this a way to ensure the "Clever Country"? And now Mr Robb suggests Australia limit funding to our 4 or 5 'best' areas of expertise; the academic equivalent of picking a Trifeca at the Melbourne Cup in a field of top-weight champions. Have we taken our betting culture too far? What of the outsiders with unpredictable research outcomes? They don't even make it to the barrier, let alone get to start at 50 to 1.

Gavin Moodie, I agree that often there appears a deep antagonism towards Universities that finds expression on these pages. I would suggest the amount of frustration being articulated has grown since workloads and casulaisation has increased. I am also hypothesising that the degree of frustration and antagonism expressed may find correlations with departmental downsizing, larger class sizes and added quality assurance measures demanding more time at meetings and on paperwork at the expense of research and teaching. If I look at my colleagues in a couple of Universities, admittedly non Go8 (but I doubt it would differ) over the years I have seen academic working till very late at night and on weekends just to get the work and assessments tasks done. This expansion of the working day seems consistent across all levels of 'white collar' occupations but I question whether this is sustainable or indeed optimal for best professional performance and individual health. I contend that these erosions in working conditions and added competition, expectations all find voice in the negative discourse you have noted. I know as a 57 year old sessional, having been in the system since 1982, and employed across the various incarnations of the unified national system' I personally have witnessed increased burn out and more academic turning their backs on the academy across this time. I feel this is all connected with a perceived devaluing of teaching, and particular HASS disciplines. I fear this shift to instrumentalism that seems to be driving our funding and resoursing decisions. This is 'antagonism' is a valid and undestandable response and needs a systemic research perspective across all Universities groupings (Go8, IRU, ATN, RUN, etc) before a complete examination of the 'radical changes' by MOOCs are accepted unquestioned.