ONLINE LEARNING: THE FUTURE IS HERE!

Geoff Webster

Managing Director, CEG Digital

Agenda

• Introduction

• About us

• What’s changed

• What’s changed for universities

• Operationalisation

• Q&A

Who are we? Our Partners

Ten Years Ago

What’s changed

What’s changed in the USATotal enrolments down across all forms of delivery, but online enrolment is up.

Enrolment shift to non-profit and public providers

OPM market size greater than $1 billion, representing dozens of providers and more than 350 institutions.

Move towards more responsive, bespoke, and integrated OPM solutions for universities

What’s changed in the UKSome trailblazers (Edinburgh, Manchester, Essex, Liverpool, UCL)

Lots of dabblers (those offering a handful of small courses)

Recent strategic engagers (Exeter, Coventry, QMUL)

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0 1-5 6-10 11-20 21-40 41+

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Number of courses offered

Count of Universities offering Online Masters Programmes

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A.Strongly agree B.Somewhatagree

C.Neither agreenor disagree

D.Somewhatdisagree

E.Stronglydisagree

Face-to-face teaching cannot meet this global demand

The domestic opportunityExpansion of loan funding for Graduates degrees Massive need for high-value-add skills training

The global opportunityGlobal demand for post-secondary education rising to 263m by 2025

Massive shortfall in traditional means of supply, especially in developing economies

Lack of sufficient capacity for physical growth

Servicing this demand increasingly difficult:

• Visas

• Brexit

• New destination countries

• Face-to-face always a small market (3-5m), high cost of moving and living

Branch campuses a limited solution

The size of the global opportunity

Source: OC&C

Institutional choices

Limited options open to universities

Some smaller, specialist, or locally focused institutions are not well placed

For many institutions it’s now or never

For almost all institutions, the question is how, not whether, we do this

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

Student Expectations

A. Low friction interaction

B. Rapid turnaround and

responsiveness

C. Clear, supportive and professional

communications

D. High quality interaction with

academics and fellow students

Student Support

• 24 hour response

• Access to specialist support services

• Rapid admissions turnaround and guidance

• IT support for VLE

AcademicDevelopment

A. Specification

B. Course structure and timetable

C. Production Schedule

D. Learning Design

E. Production of Modules

• Tutor led, taught experience

• User-friendly with clear navigation

• Online discussion forums

• Group learning activities

• Peer review

• “Learning loop”

• Online assessments

• Teaching activities aligned to learning outcomes

• Explicitly not PDFs and self-directed study

Design Principles

• Course structure and cohesion set by senior University academics

• Modules designed and written by University academics

• Course taught by Online Tutors – can be adjunct faculty or externally recruited

• Face to face delivered by University faculty –high value-add component changing by course type

AcademicDelivery

• Reliable

• Easy enough to manage

• Low friction for academics

• Developer-friendly

• Provides necessary features

• Able to interface with third party software and data

• Student-centric user experience

Technology

RECRUITMENT

Where does demand come from?Online markets overlap with, but not identical to, traditional face-to face markets:

Asia: India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam

Gulf States: UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

Africa: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa

Europe: UK, EU, Scandinavia, Russia, Kazakhstan

Americas: Canada, some part of Latin American

Sales channels

Currently largely a direct sale market - why isn’t it an agent opportunity?

• Relatively sophisticated users not looking for guidance

• Not much choice

Opportunities

• Greater breadth of options and students

• More languages offered

• Local market knowledge still vital – consulting and marketing

• Corporates and institutional sales require specialist insight

Online Learning: The Future is Here!

• UK Universities are now actively participating in Online

• There will be some that go it alone and some that partner with the private sector

• This is going to be a very significant market opportunity over the next 5 years

• The agent channel is missing out!

THANK YOU