The Current eLearning Landscape

Speed and Globalisation

The pace of technology enhanced learning change is accelerating, driven by the globalization of higher education, information technology, and deregulation. Technology is changing at a rate that is faster than universities are presently absorbing. The unfolding reality in higher education is uncertain, ever changing, and unpredictable. As the world moves to an ever faster clock cycle, so must we change our management to keep pace (Boyd 1996, Hodgson and White 2003). Most welcome this phenomenon for its ability to expand the availability of educational resources to students throughout the world, and deliver improvements in learning outcomes.

There is now a global market of thousands of universities with LMS’s that advanced technology can be plugged into. Technology advances in smart learning objects like adaptive quizzes will require more investment than traditional learning materials. Large global vendors are able to make these investments and are increasingly offering advanced intelligent learning content to serve this market (consider Wiley, Pearson Education etc.). It will not be economically feasible for individual universities to rebuild entire programs of courses with advanced open content on their own. In order to compete with commercial providers, collaborative efforts to build and maintain full programs of advanced open content will be required. SPOCS and MOOCS are a suitable platform for achieving this goal, and should be part of any plan. MOOCs and SPOCS are expected to a) increase the marketability of courses (‘get an MIT certification your local university’) but also help disrupt-proof a university through their ability to share course material and credit, thereby achieving the sustainable economies of scale required to build and maintain this material.

While much of this technology has the ultimate goal of enhancing student learning, there are also important innovations that enhance the student experience or improve efficiency or catering to flexible learning or different learning styles. This plan therefore includes the pursuit of educational technology that benefits wider organizational objectives such as: student equity, industry connection, access to services, global engagement, cultural engagement, learning convenience, and peer networking. Efficiency benefits are however particularly important for their ability to redirect scarce resources towards other University objectives such as personal contact, research, cultural activities, and community engagement.

Technology disruptions are unlikely to impact the international student market since many of these students are aspiring for citizenship or a western job, and need to attend a Western institution to do so. Technology disruptions do however have the ability to impact the domestic market where students have an increasing array of online options available, often linked directly to job sites (e.g. SEEK, Linkedin). To remain competitive for these students may require collaborative efforts to create shared degree programs full of advanced rich intelligent (expensive) learning content and technology, but delivered with a high value face to face component. Having 20,000 around the world, investing time, each creating the same programs is not sustainable in a globalised system. For those concerned about homogenisation, we are currently well too far down the wrong end of that scale to remain sustainable.

Figure - Global ELearning Technology is more rapidly solving problems and providing opportunities