Can UK universities avoid repeating past mistakes in online learning?
Photo by Steve Johnson
In the maelstrom of the current state of UK higher education, there is little time for reflection. Some universities are engaged in such an existential struggle that their focus is solely on current and future performance. When there is retrospective analysis of how UK higher education has come to be in such a precarious position, it often centres on the apportioning of blame—whether directed at past UK government policies and rhetoric that has cut the supply of high-fee-paying international students, or at perceived poor leadership from vice-chancellors and university executives by disgruntled university employees.
I must admit that I find some of the commentary on why certain universities are facing extremely challenging circumstances, and why UK higher education as a whole is struggling, to be one-dimensional at times. Opinions range from sections of the higher education press that pull their punches to appeal to their audience, to those who angrily lash out. Similarly, the analysis of the factors behind the current difficulties tend to focus predominantly on funding in one form or another.
Reflections on how the structure of universities has contributed to the current situation seem largely limited to the observation that there’s not enough collaboration. However, we now have a collaboration taskforce set up by Universities UK that they confidently predicted amounted to a new era of collaboration - which led me to thinking what the opposite of getting your excuses in early is.
Although time may be limited, it seems important that, at this point in UK higher education, some effort is made to understand and reflect on the role universities themselves have played in creating the challenges they now face. While significant external factors undoubtedly contribute, there have also been decisions made by universities that have left them in weaker positions, and the structure of the overall model has, in some ways, exacerbated these issues.
I’ve previously discussed how the current financial challenges have been a significant factor driving more UK universities to take online learning seriously. The number of institutions making market entries has been growing, and, to a lesser extent, so has the diversification into online sub-degree offerings. These initiatives are not positioned as low-pressure experiments but are expected to deliver results and generate income, although with varying levels of ambition.
When reflecting on the current landscape of online learning in UK higher education, I often find it difficult not to think back to a time when a similarly significant number of universities were venturing into a slightly different form of online education. I am referring to the MOOC era of the 2010s.
Several universities ultimately failed to capitalise on the opportunities presented during that period, and as a result are left in weaker positions today. Decisions made during the MOOC era offer lessons that universities can learn from as they develop online learning in the 2020’s.
Why did UK universities embrace MOOCs in the 2010s?
During the 2010s, over 50 UK universities began developing and offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This move into the online learning market was driven by a mix of perceived opportunity and FOMO. For the latter, consider headlines such as “UK enters global online university race” following the launch of FutureLearn. It was another example of a “UK answer” to an online education trend originating in the US— with the UK seeming to be particularly adept at developing answers that lead to total business failure.
The well-documented hype surrounding what were essentially online short courses encouraged several universities to invest in partnerships with platform providers. Many also allocated significant budgets to the development of MOOCs, with some even establishing dedicated teams for their production.
It is difficult to imagine UK universities making, or being in the same financial position to make, similar investments today. Yet there remains a strong appetite to expand into online learning, including the development of online short courses. In the case of the latter, it’s hard not to feel that some of this is a case of “after the Lord Mayor’s show,” as the MOOC movement provided a window of opportunity to create a portfolio of online short-course offerings when financial foundations were firmer.
Strategic missteps in UK universities’ online learning journey
While a few universities can point to meaningful engagement with MOOCs that continues to benefit them today, this period is largely characterised by a lack of strategy, leading to a flirtation with online short courses that ultimately led to very mixed results. The MOOC era presented a window of opportunity for universities to establish an online short course offering, but many failed to capitalise on it.
There are several lessons UK universities can draw from this period. One of which is that developing an online learning proposition requires a serious and committed approach. Many universities were lukewarm in their engagement with MOOCs, even as they paid substantial sums for access to the platforms that hosted them. This resulted in significant financial waste across the UK higher education sector, with most institutions failing to recoup their investments. In some cases, there was little concern about this financial loss or any serious oversight.
Some might argue that financial returns were secondary, framing MOOCs as an altruistic means of providing free, open access to education. However, there was no clear consensus on this point, nor any widespread strategic clarity that offered a unified rationale for why MOOCs were being developed.
The MOOC era also highlighted universities' challenges with portfolio management and a lack of commercial savviness. As MOOC platforms refined their business models, they gained valuable insights into learner demand. However, many universities repeatedly failed—or were unable—to respond to this demand by developing courses in those areas.
The need to be responsive and aligned with market and learner demand is an important lesson from that period. The lesson extends beyond simply understanding demand; it also lies in the organisational capacity to make things happen, orchestrate a viable portfolio, and offer a range of courses that align with both institutional strengths and learner needs.
This is clearly an area that is going to be important as and when the lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) actually arrives. However, based on the catastrophic LLE short course trial, one wonders if any lessons have really been learned.
The cost of lost capability in online learning development
I’ve previously spoken about financial waste, but this period also witnessed what I would describe as capability waste. Several universities built capability for online short courses in the form of MOOCs, only to see that capability essentially dissipate. I can think of multiple institutions that had effective teams dedicated to designing and producing online courses, and in some cases even more. I’ve seen some of these teams crumble, with talent leaving the UK higher education sector as a result.
While a good case can be made that the funding of this resource was never going to be commensurate with the return for MOOCs, the loss of capability in online learning design and production built during this period now seems clearly misguided. These resources could have been redirected to the development of degrees or other educational offerings. In some cases, that would have been far more beneficial to universities who have a limited number of online degrees, but a number of MOOCs, that while sizeable are increasingly the online portfolio equivalent of a white elephant.
Lessons for UK universities: Avoiding past mistakes in online learning
The MOOC period of the 2010s, though fuelled by an unhelpful and misguided level of hype, served as a catalyst for investment in online education by UK universities. However, this investment, in aggregate, did not deliver significant long-term returns and failed to provide a platform from which many institutions could build.
While I’m not suggesting there were no benefits from UK universities' engagement with MOOCs, at an institutional level, there were notable missed opportunities. Which UK university, for example, can point to a proposition like the University of Michigan’s Michigan Online—developed in part through their engagement with MOOCs that also serves as a lifelong learning platform for its alumni.
These missed opportunities appear increasingly stark as more UK universities turn their attention to developing online degrees and sub-degree offerings. However, there is still value to be gained from this period, particularly in the form of lessons that can be learned. I’ve mentioned some already, such as the importance of being serious and strategic, and of aligning with market and learner demand. Perhaps the overarching lesson is the need to avoid short-termism. It was this mindset that drove an in-out cycle of engagement with online learning during the 2010s, failing to yield the kind of long-term benefits that could have left some universities in a much stronger position for the remainder of the 2020s.
Universities need to think of online learning as a long game, rather than a short-term opportunity, and insulate their efforts against another common source of waste in the sector: the frequent cycle of disruption caused by new leaders abandoning existing projects in favour of their own ideas or visions. There are many lessons to be learned from the past, but given the current challenges facing the sector, there has never been a more pressing time to learn them, and learn them quickly.
