Bringing Convenience and Open Source Methods To Higher Education

Business Week has a piece discussing the effects internet-based technology and open sharing are having on the standards of higher education. The author says every product's success or failure depends on its fidelity — the overall quality of experience — and convenience. Since the internet has made the sharing of even expert-level knowledge convenient, he wonders how long it will be until some school or company raises the fidelity enough to have their degrees accepted alongside those of professional-grade colleges. Quoting: "Once in a while, a market gets completely out of balance. Forces conspire to prevent either a high-fidelity or high-convenience player from emerging. All the offerings crowd around one end or the other. Eventually, someone nails a disruptive approach. Customers and competitors rush in and the marketplace wonders why that great idea didn't come sooner. The higher education market is a lot like that. For centuries the university model dominated because nothing else worked. No technology existed that might deliver an interactive, engaging educational experience without gathering students and teachers in the same physical space. ... These days broadband Internet, video games, social networks, and other developments could combine to create an online, inexpensive, super-convenient model for higher education. You wouldn't get the sights and sounds of a campus, personal contact with professors, or beer-soaked frat parties, but you'd end up with the knowledge you need and the degree to prove it."

Comments

Erm.... Labs?

[kombipom]

Small problem with that idea in the physical sciences, a simulated lab isn't much use for hands on experience.

Re:Erm.... Labs?

[QuantumRiff]

I'm pretty sure its impossible to ship out Cadavers for anatomy classes.

One sentence discredits the whole article

[antifoidulus]

The University of Phoenix which is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, is partway there, though it's a hybrid of online and campus learning.

Um, "partway there"? If someone came to me with a University of Phoenix degree, I would reply, "Well, that DOES prove you like to pay a lot of money for toilet paper."

The University Of Phoenix education is a complete and utter joke. What they teach is worthless and best and counterproductive at worst(and yes, I have seen some of the content of their masters programs, assignments that include algebra I was doing in 7th grade and homework questions like, "What is a MAN?")

These articles don't want to point out the fact that entrepreneurs have already tried, and failed pretty miserably, at taking on the higher education market before, and other than using the internet, I don't see much difference between what was tried then and what this guy is proposing.

Re:One sentence discredits the whole article

[SoVeryTired]

These articles don't want to point out the fact that entrepreneurs have already tried, and failed pretty miserably, at taking on the higher education market before, and other than using the internet, I don't see much difference between what was tried then and what this guy is proposing.

The Open University in the UK did just that, and they did it really successfully.

Re:One sentence discredits the whole article

[Andrew Cady]

The University Of Phoenix education is a complete and utter joke. What they teach is worthless and best and counterproductive at worst(and yes, I have seen some of the content of their masters programs, assignments that include algebra I was doing in 7th grade and homework questions like, "What is a MAN?")

That doesn't matter, because what universities sell is not education but credentials.

After all, the internet as a whole provides a much richer educational environment than any university possibly could, "internet university" or not. (Indeed, classes in ordinary universities are also a joke, if you're accustomed to learning things without being forced.)

But just learning things won't help you get you a job. I have heard perfectly competent hackers talk about going back to get another degree (in computer science) even though they know they wouldn't learn anything there, because it would help them get higher-paying jobs.

So yeah, there's a market for credentials, and the less time you have to waste pretending to be learning what in fact you already know, the better.

The Library

[florescent_beige]

University is more than a bunch of classes and tests. It's a life experience including: moving away from home and living on your own for the first time, meeting and getting along with people who are more talented than you (a shock if you aren't used to it), establishing friendships and the beginnings of a life-long network, finding out where professors come from, buying some Staedler instruments and spending hours admiring them (partly because you can't afford to do anything else after you paid for them with that month's food money), and discovering the university library.

I can't be the only one who's outlook on life was modified by spending time in a library like the Robarts. There's an atmosphere of concentrated truth in a place like that you just don't find anywhere else. First, you find out that the world is full of people who know a whole lot. Second, you learn that people have spent a lot of time writing down what they know. And the scale of what I'm talking about only really becomes clear when you stand in a library stack with books stretching off forever and ever, each one some person's passionate little gem.

To me, higher learning is about more than just getting some facts straight so you can get a job.

But having said all that, it will be true that other models of learning will bring education to people who otherwise wouldn't get it, and who can argue with that?

Re:Yes - and?

[nbauman]

I don't see what the big deal here is, although I haven't RTFA (of course).

One of the things I learned from college was that if you don't do the reading, you won't know what's going on in class.