Virtual learning world expands as universities go online

A vast and ever-increasing number of the world’s students are studying for degrees without ever setting foot on a campus.

Open Universities Australia (OUA), the 20-year-old antipodean pioneer of online learning, is a prime example – it has experienced an unprecedented doubling in enrolments over the past four years.

More than 55,000 students now select from the OUA’s 1,400 units and 170 qualifications offered by 20 Australian universities and other tertiary education providers, including polytechnic institutes.

“The expansion in student numbers is a reflection of the attractiveness of online education to fit with our students’ lifestyles and work commitments,” says Paul Wappett, OUA chief executive.

“But we wouldn’t have had that growth without quality education outcomes, and that’s because we have the best courses from the best universities and are able to choose those providers – that is very attractive.”

Wappett says that of the 55,000 students studying with the OUA, 65% are women while the 10 most popular courses are primary school teaching, criminology, communications, study skills, education, accounting, management, information technology, marketing and behavioural sciences.

As a not-for-profit company, the OUA has a turnover of more than A$200 million (U$200 million) a year and in 2011 returned $11 million in ‘profits’ to its seven university shareholders.

Access for all

“There are no prerequisites to enrol in an OUA course; students do not need to have finished school or done well in their final exams,” he says.

“Those taking core units can also access the federal government’s Fee-Help scheme that enables them to obtain a Higher Education Contribution Scheme-style loan, and 70% of our students get them although many others pay the fees upfront, or the companies they work for do.”

Wappett says it is incumbent on universities not to be blind to the effect of the internet on other sectors, such as business, travel and classified advertising, that had completely changed their mode of operations.

“The online world is becoming an increasingly attractive option to students, so universities will need to combine the best of face-to-face teaching with online learning to meet their demands.”

Australia’s million-plus university students already have online access to their lectures as well as to individual subjects, but increasing numbers are switching to learning solely via the web, often with the aid of the universities themselves.

At Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, online enrolments have jumped by more than 200% over the past two years and last November the university went a step further, negotiating a partnership with web recruiter Seek to establish a separate company to offer all the university’s courses over the internet.

Professor Shirley Leitch, Swinburne’s deputy vice-chancellor (academic), chairs the company and says: “We know today that our future lies outside the traditional classroom. We know we must move beyond the bricks-and-mortar model, beyond the 'sage on the stage’. Universities must change to survive, to remain relevant to the next generation of learners.

“Technology is having a profound impact on education – the way we teach, the way we deliver education and the way we learn. Today's students want education that is mobile and accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our students are heading online in droves.

“When Swinburne introduced the learning platform Blackboard Mobile, where students can log on to courses using their mobile phones, the take-up was more than 8,500 users in the first five weeks.”

Leitch says students not only expect education to be accessible 24/7 but also to be able to access learning on every device and to have access to real people, their tutors.

That means universities have to make courses available through multiple channels such as the smart phone and the i-Pad as well as the computer, and to provide them when and where students want – and that is a fundamental change.

Open access in the US

Swinburne, of course is not alone.

Australia’s largest university, Monash, is also moving more into e-learning and has signed up as the only foreign institution involved in a project involving eight US universities with the international educational publishing and technology company Pearson.

The company is developing its open access learning management system called Open Class, which it describes as a “new kind of self-service learning management system delivered from the cloud”.

“It is easy to use and completely free. There are no hardware, licensing or hosting costs, thus enabling widespread adoption of new learning approaches that encourage interaction within the classroom and around the world.”

In America, several prestigious Ivy League universities are putting more and more of their courses on the web, free to anyone anywhere but without offering credits.

Last month, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology committed US$30 million each to make available many of their courses on the internet at no charge.

When Stanford University Professor Sebastian Thrun put his introduction to artificial intelligence course online late last year, 160,000 students from dozens of countries enrolled.

Thrun resigned from Stanford and, backed by venture capital and $200,000 of his own money, launched a virtual university called Udacity in January that he hopes will attract 500,000 students, after 90,000 signed up in the first two months.

To Professor Simon Marginson, from Melbourne University’s centre for the study of higher education, these latest moves represent a “a game changer”.

“I think we finally have a new kind of product that draws on the intrinsic character of the internet – brand access for no cost or low cost as the key – and online is finally going to take off”, he says.

"Called massive open online course, this MOOC format uses videos and interactive assessment exercises that gives students what they want: free content, file sharing and social networking.

“This could become another way of gaining credentials and, if enough employers accept them, MOOC will have such cost advantages that it could eventually replace mass education institutions,” says Marginson.

“It won’t replace the Ivy League universities and there will still be a lot of occupational training and certification in formal programmes, but it might make a sizeable dent.”