Kalman's

The BBC reports that Google is now taking over the maintenance of the email systems of entire universities. The article focuses on students, who will now be able to keep their email address for ever (is this really such a good idea? What does it mean to have an email address from a university you graduated from 20 years ago? Will you also get a joe@thisuni.edu after having taken just a single course with the university?).

Since universities were some of the earliest adapters of email, many universities' email systems are slow and unreliable. I can see the huge temptation on all sides to accept the offer and move to Google. I too use gmail and most of the time I am very happy with it. Nevertheless, there are significant issues of privacy and commercialization related to gmail, and I would be very curious to learn how these universities are dealing with these issues. As a simple example, say that 10 years down the road one of these universities wishes to switch from gmail to another provider, how will that be handled? Will gmail transfer all of its archives in an orderly manner to the next provider?

Lastly, I am curious to see the intention behind the quote "Mr Nowlan says that Google is making a serious effort to enter the international higher education sector". I believe international higher education is full of interesting opportunities for a company like Google, and that it has not yet scratched the surface of these opportunities.

Today and tomorrow (May 17-18) ministers responsible for higher education in most European countries meet in London for a bi-annual meeting on the Bologna process. A very interesting document that was developed in preparation for the meeting is the Trends V report prepared by the European University Association. Of special interest to this blog is the section on lifelong learning (pages 62-70). It is not surprising to read that many universities are not giving lifelong learning the priority they should, focusing instead on the Bologna related structural changes. I would predict that only a small fraction of the universities in each country would develop a specialization in degrees for working professionals, and that in most other universities it will remain marginalized. Developing truly effective lifelong learning requires significant vision and leadership, as well as specific knowhow and skills that are relatively rare in traditional institutes of higher education. It is my experience that such a task is best achieved by harnessing the knowhow and experience of the private sector, to better understand the needs of the lifelong learning market, and to prepare the infrastructure to serve this emerging market segment.

As one who is interested in the development of online international academic programs, I have no doubt that the Bologna Process is creating a system that is much more welcoming to such initiatives, since it increases transparency on issues such as quality assurance, and facilitates mutual recognition of courses and degrees.

For more information see the commissioner press release, and this overview of the Bologna process.

This Financial Times piece describes a joint project by US-based Kaplan (a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company) and The University of Essex. The concept seems similar to the one I was involved in setting up in the late 90's, with The University of Liverpool (today: Laureate Online Education B.V.). I'll be curious to track this collaboration. The FT's tone is somewhat skeptic about such ventures when "students never meet a tutor". In my experience, online students meet their tutors (instructors) much more often than in face-to-face teaching, though it is true that the meeting takes place in cyberspace. Note the quote

"Commenting on the Kaplan deal with Essex, Sally Hunt, joint general
secretary of the University and College Union, said there was no
guarantee that standards could be maintained if a university lost
control of academic provision."<snip>"Many students not following a 'traditional' route to higher education often need more support than teenagers moving away to university.
Returning to education is an incredibly big decision for many people to
take and it is absolutely vital that the necessary support is in place
so students complete their courses and standards are maintained," she
said.

It is my experience that the support Sally Hunt talks about, that extra support working professionals need, is exactly the type of support that private enterprises are better at providing than traditional academic institutions. So, assuming that, like the U of Liverpool, U of Essex is maintaining the full responsibility for Quality Assurance of its online programs, then I see no need to criticize the deal. On the contrary. Building such a QA system is not a trivial endeavour, but it has been accomplished in the past. And, once it is in place, all parties involved can work in synergy, and benefit greatly: the students, the university, and the private company.

This podcast of a lecture by Lou Carbone, CEO of Experience Engineering Inc. was a helpful reminder for me that we are in the business of engineering student experiences. It also reminded me how many institutes of higher education tend to forget that. Lou brings the example of banks, who used to be in the "relationship" business, but moved away to making "products", and I think many universities are guilty of the same sin. Listen to Lou's presentation (at least to its first 40 minutes or so) to learn why so many customers who provide high rankings in customer service questionnaires are still likely to move away to a competitor, and what questions you should ask to identify those who are less satisfied. See what we, in higher education, can learn from barbers, Harley Davidson, Starbucks.

The strongest point is Lou's emphasis on constantly examining how we make our customers feel about themselves. If I look back at many right and wrong decisions I took in the past in regards to students, focusing on how the decision would impact the way students feel about themselves would have been a very good rule of thumb. In academic education making students feel good about themselves is a complex matter, if you wish to maintain high academic standards. The temptation to drop the standards is always there. Nevertheless, students are highly sensitive to that, and though they might like undeserved grades in the short term, at the end of the day they will know when the standards have been lowered, and with the lowered standards, they will feel less good about their academic accomplishments, and consequently about the institution that awarded them the grades and the degree. The best compliment from a student is always "it was hard work, but worth the effort". In our line of business the best student experience is a result of placing real challenges in front of students, and then giving them the tools to overcome these challenges and emerge enriched from the experience. And, if they can overcome the challenge using the power of collaboration, then the feeling of accomplishment gets mingled with a strong sense of a learning community, this being a winning combination.

This posting might be slightly off topic, discussing online high schools.

OLU mentioned this Business Week article, that describes the entry of big online higher ed players such as Kaplan and Apollo Group into the arena of online high schools. In my opinion, the move of such deep pocketed players, together with the stagnation in US-based academic enrollments, means that significant resources will be mobilized to increase the number of high school students who study online.

What are the benefits? Firstly, more hybrid (blended) courses that combine the best of online with the best of face-to-face should be encouraged at any age beyond which we are comfortable placing a child in front of a screen and keyboard. Secondly, those 700,000 precollegiate mentioned in the article who had enrolled to at least one online course surely benefited, as I already discussed before.

But, what are the challenges? Obviously, I would be very concerned about children and adolescents for whom the majority of social interactions take place online. It is true that social learning is a lifelong effort, but it is during the high school years that we acquire significant parts of these skills. Online social skills build upon those skills acquired offline, and it worries me to try and imagine a person whose skills were developed only online. But my concerns are beyond that. Some learning skills such as the taking of notes in a lecture (I mean one that can't be rewound or paused...) or that of browsing a (physical) library are mainly "offline" skills. How will purely online students acquire them? Moreover, as the article mentions, standards for assessing the learning of online high schools have not yet been established, and the combination of competing, bottom-line oriented companies, with vague or non existent standards for measuring outcomes, is an explosive combination. Lastly, online education requires more discipline than face-to-face. Will the average teenager find that discipline?

I would suggest that a key to successfully making the transition, is to learn from those who have dealt with similar challenges for decades, namely the home schooling movement, and distance learning organizations such as the Distance Education Centre Victoria in Australia. I have no doubt that it is possible to effectively teach high school students online. I am also quite sure that we still have a way to go before we can be confident about what is the best way to achieve that effectiveness.