Changing Higher Education

How a course-rich world might impact higher education: I. Technology vs pedagogy

This is the first of three posts in which I look at some of the ways in which the new, "off the shelf" course-rich world created by the Open Courseware Consortium, MOOCs, commercial publishers such as Pearson, etc.( all of which I called the new college level courses, or NCLCs) might impact the business model of higher education.  

In an earlier related post, How can we think about the wave of new innovations in higher education?, I suggested that the course-rich world would greatly change the Resources box of the higher eduction business model. In a subsequent post, Michael Raynor's analysis of disruption - and higher education, I reviewed Michael Raynor's extension of Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation, and promised to apply his results to a study of the NCLCs.  This is that promised post, in which I look at some of the characteristics of the NCLCs that may determine whether they have the potential to drive a disruptive innovation.

******

Raynor's work indicates that the speed with which the NCLCs can improve in value will tell us something about the ways in which their use may impact higher education. Thus, we should first focus on the characteristics of the NCLCs and not on specifics of how they might be used. To think about that, we need to attempt a definiton of "value" for the NCLCs.

"Value" in education is a mixture of attributes that students may desire. Since we are talking about NCLCs, we are really concerned only with those attributes most connected to education itself, and not to related areas such as social growth or research. The value of education itself is certainly composed of several components, among which are: the effectiveness and depth of the learning that can be achieved; the ease and convenience of access; the academic brand of the provider; and recognizable certification. However, issues of such as specifics of how the NCLCs are used and whether certification follows are really part of the Procedures box in the higher education business model, and will be discussed in subsequent posts of this series. In this post, I will look at questions of the academic brand of the NCLCs and the effectiveness and depth of learning that can be achieved - and how fast they might be improved. 

Michael Raynor's analysis of disruption - and higher education

In a recent post that focused on the business model for higher education, I discussed how I believe that the greatest pressure on the "Resources" component of that model comes from the new "off the shelf" course-rich world in which we live. College-level courses, which formerly had to be created in-house by faculty, are suddenly to be found everywhere. MOOCs are, of course, a very visible and discussed new component of this course-rich world, but not the only component. Other sources of the course-rich world are textbook companies such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill and open source materials such as can be found at the OpenSourceWare Consortium.   I will be looking at some of these new sources of college-level courses (NCLCs) and considering how they might impact the higher education business model in a series of upcoming posts. First, however, I want to introduce another approach that I have found useful in these reflections.

 Michael E Raynor's The Innovator's Manifesto: Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth extends Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation in interesting directions. His goal is to make disruption a predictive theory, so he focuses on identifying the characteristics of an innovation that increase the likelihood that it will eventually be disruptive. He also considers the relationships of some of the characteristics of the innovation to the speed with which it can grow into disruption. This post will focus on explaining his approach and some of his results that are most pertinent to higher education.

Obama's higher education views

As a back-up to President Obama's State of the Union speech, the White House has released The President's Plan for a Strong Middle Class and a Strong America. A much commented-on sentence in a section with the challenging title Holding colleges accountable for cost, value and quality reads:

The President will call on Congress to consider value, affordability, and student outcomes in making determinations about which colleges and universities receive access to federal student aid,either by incorporating measures of value and affordability into the existing accreditation system; or by establishing a new, alternative system of accreditation that would provide pathways for higher education models and colleges to receive federal student aid based on performance and results. 

The mention of "alternative system of accreditation" has understandably caused considerable discussion, and I would be remiss if I did not join that discussion. Before that, however, there is a very important point contained in the President's message that I think has not gotten appropriate attention.