costs-degree-higher

Containing the costs of a higher education degree


Two researchers discuss how tech-enabled, and competency-based, models may improve overall affordability.

costs-degree-higherMany higher-ed institutions are turning to online models to more cheaply deliver certain kinds of courses and assess student learning. Is this, in fact, a good or sustainable strategy? What role does technology have to reduce the costs of delivering post-secondary education?

Two researchers join this month’s eCampus News Symposium to discuss how technology-enabled online learning and competency-based models have the potential to improve the overall affordability and sustainability of education.

The disruptive innovation that will skill-up America

Dr. Michelle Weise, at the time of this post a senior research fellow with the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and now the executive director of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University, discusses how scale and modularization through CBE will provide significant opportunities for learners:

Disruption is probably one of the most overused buzzwords in education, yet few seem to know what it means. In higher education especially, there’s a tendency to take an exciting technological advancement, call it a disruptive innovation, cram it into the classroom experience, and then hope that efficiencies will magically appear. But a disruptive innovation doesn’t necessarily entail a technological breakthrough. In fact, in our most recent work in higher education called Hire Education, Clayton Christensen and I underscore that there is true disruptive potential in online competency-based education (CBE) aligned to workforce needs even though the parts of this whole are not at all new.

We’ve all heard of workforce training, competencies, and online learning. They’re not new phenomena, but online competency-based education is revolutionary because it marks the critical convergence of multiple vectors: the right learning model, the right technologies, the right customers, and the right business model.

The theory of disruptive innovation helps illustrate how the inertia of academia inevitably makes way for upstart disruptors, such as online, competency-based educational programs, to seize a market of untapped connections between learning and work.

Most institutions get locked into the complex orchestration of resources, priorities, and processes of not just one but three very different, costly, and conflicting value propositions that center on teaching, research, and facilitating a social community of students. In this complex orchestration, it becomes impossible to parse the exact costs of producing these interdependent lines of business. And there’s no way that technology will somehow magically disentangle these locked business models to create a newly efficient model of higher education…Read the full essay here.

(Next page: Affordability and sustainability for institutions through ICT)

Affordability and sustainability through ICT-supported education

Dan O’Neill, senior sustainability scientist and general manager for the Global Sustainability Solutions Services at Arizona State University, discusses why it’s critical to understand the potential of technology to not only improve student learning, but help the planet:

The affordability of college education, conjoined with the discussion of the public and/or private value generated by that education, has never been a more important topic. If we believe that society must educate the global population in order to create a better world for present and future generations, then it is critical for those of us in higher education to understand the role that technology has to play in enabling post-secondary learning for all.

A recent case study of Arizona State University’s online campus, ASU Online, conducted by the ASU Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives and its Global Sustainability Solutions Services, determined that online education not only provides greater access to higher education offerings but also has become a cornerstone element of the institution’s sustainability plan generating socio-economic value and benefits for the degree-earner, the institution and the greater economy.

The case study began when Dell approached ASU in mid-2014 with a request to analyze the sustainability impacts of information and communication technology, or ICT, in online education as part of its Dell 2020 Legacy of Good Plan. Dell wanted to understand the role of ICT in generating net positive progress in a variety of industries, including higher education (work that is also currently underway in conjunction with Business for Social Responsibility [BSR] through its Center for Technology and Sustainability).

Our study resulted in several significant conclusions: the online and “immersion” (traditional, campus-based, face-to-face) models are rapidly merging; most online and immersion courses will utilize the exact same technology base; the ICT intensity varies little between the two modes; and the socio-economic benefits of online education dwarf its environmental benefits, however important they are…Read the full essay here.

 

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