Many people have questioned the extent to which the higher education sector has learnt lessons from the overall experience of the pandemic. For some, the sector has simply carried on regardless and reverted to its old ways. I think this view is quite simplistic, but there are certainly lessons that might have been learned that haven't been universally adopted.
Read MoreThe year is still in its infancy, yet it has already delivered some noteworthy news in online education. Coursera has just reported its results for Q4 of 2023 and the previous year as a whole, alongside official announcements of Online Programme Management (OPM) company partnerships with two UK universities. These developments are significant for what they reveal about the current state of the online education sector in relation to higher education.
Read MoreI wonder if you remember the higher education discourse of 2020 and 2021. One aspect of it that sticks in my memory is the almost incessant talk about modalities, whether that be online, blended, hybrid or hyflex. The focus also extended beyond just the range of modalities and included the future trajectory for the primary teaching modality in higher education.
Read MoreJanuary has been a challenging month for those seeking positive news about UK higher education. The news has been full of stories of financial crises, fears of what would happen if a higher education institution (HEI) goes under and jolly topics like fraud in franchised provision. It’s clear the UK higher education sector is in a bad way.
Many HEIs are compelled to undertake a variety of measures to tackle the severe challenges they now face. This involves exploring either new markets or those in which they have not previously been active in.
Read MoreAs we approach the end of the year, I want to share some reflections on the past year as it relates to online education within UK higher education.
AI has dominated this year's higher education headlines, and the impressive emergence of AI in mainstream products is this year's standout story. However, the focus on AI in higher education has felt overdone at times, to the extent that one would be forgiven for thinking that nothing else happened this year.
Read MoreTimes Higher Education (THE) recently announced the launch of a global online learning ranking to add to their growing suite. This new ranking is an acknowledgment of the increasing number of universities that either have online degree portfolios or are beginning to develop them.
Read MoreImagine working at a university as a strong advocate for online education, striving to get this on the agenda but often facing frustration due to the lack of appetite, myopia, and misunderstanding. Then picture hearing that another university nearby has announced a significant move into online education, creating numerous online degrees and supporting them with a dedicated team and operation. It would be hard not to feel a very strong sense of envy.
Read MoreIn the last 12-18 months, I’ve frequently described sluggish performance, acquisitions, the cloud of US regulatory changes and less than healthy financial signals as turbulence in the world of online education companies. It would be difficult to claim that things have settled down significantly since my last exploration of this topic, but it does feel like an opportune time for some reflection.
Read MoreOver recent years, I’ve highlighted the growing trend of UK universities developing their online education offer. The majority of this activity has been focussed on postgraduate taught online degrees, and there are good reasons for why they are pursuing opportunities in that market.
But what about online undergraduate education? What’s been happening in this part of the online education market, and what opportunities might it present to universities looking to grow and develop in this area?
Read MoreIn the last few years UK universities have been increasingly recruiting for senior leadership roles focussed on online learning, with over 40 new roles being established. This trend has accompanied the growing importance placed on online education as a whole, with more universities growing their online course portfolios.
Read MoreOne byproduct of the pandemic was that practically every subject taught in higher education had to be adapted to be taught online. Whilst a number of subject areas like business & management have a legacy of being taught online, there are a number of subjects for which that isn’t the case. There’s also a number of subjects that many people feel, almost intuitively, just can’t be taught well online.
Read MoreThe vast majority of engagement and interaction with online learning experiences is asynchronous. Students engage in activities, tasks and interact not simply at a set time for a set duration, but across time when they want to or are able to do so.
Whilst there are myriad types of activities, interaction, content etc that can form part of asynchronous online learning - over the years a core menu of common activity types and associated online technologies has been established.
Read MoreAlthough many other things get much more attention - one of the notable changes in higher education in respect to edtech in recent years is the greater usage of video conferencing technology. Many HEIs had this technology in their edtech suites before the pandemic, but usage for learning and teaching was minimal and largely for online distance learning programmes with a synchronous element.
Read MoreI recently spoke at the Online Learning Summit at the University of Leeds, sharing my analysis of the evolving online education landscape in UK higher education. Whilst that inevitably touched on a range of trends and developments, a key message was one of steady growth in the number of online degrees on offer at UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and more institutions becoming serious about online distance education.
Read MoreOnline education as a relatively new mode of teaching & learning in the grand timeline of education is often, as if by default, accompanied by a narrative of it being the growing modality of the future. Whilst there’s a lot in that - higher education institutions (HEIs) need to build foundations on something firmer than hyperbolic predictions as they look to successfully offer online distance education.
Read MoreTowards the end of 2022 I wrote a post about the turbulence being experienced by online education companies that partner with universities. This was on the back of a raft of negative company announcements about their performance and financial health.
There’s been a number of changes since then and there’s still plenty of dark clouds looming. What we’re seeing is a more prolonged shake-out of some of these companies.
So it’s an interesting juncture to reflect on what’s unfolded over the most recent period of turbulence. It’s also worth considering what turbulence-driven changes might mean for the way online education companies operate in the future and what we might be left with.
Read MoreUK higher education is currently growing in lots of different ways. Record numbers are applying and going to universities, and it’s been predicted that by 2030 there will be a million people applying for places. This is largely due to an increasing 18-year-old population and an ever growing number of internationally mobile students.
Read MoreIt’s been a pretty significant period in the world of online education with a whole raft of negative headlines emanating from a number of notable online education companies that partner with universities.
Read MoreWe live in a world where there are different modes of teaching and study that educational providers can offer. It goes without saying that one of the most dominant for many of them is centred around sequences of face-to-face classes or sessions.
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