My five wishes for online learning in 2015

Predictions, schmedictions. No-one can guess the future but we can at least say what we would like to see. So here are my five wishes for 2015, with a guess at the odds of them happening.

1. Open textbooks.

My wish: faculty will start adopting open textbooks on a large scale in 2015. This is probably the easiest and best way to bring down the cost of education for students.

BC’s open textbook project should be in full swing in 2015, with the top 40 subject topics/disciplines covered with at least one text book per topic by the end of 2015. These topics cover both university and college programs, including apprenticeship and trades training (got to get those pipe fitters and welders  for LNG). All these books will have been peer reviewed by BC faculty.

These open textbooks will of course be available not only to BC institutions but any institution in the world that wants to use them. It will be fascinating to see who actually adopts these books. We could have the ridiculous situation where everyone else BUT BC universities and colleges are using them.

I have to declare an interest here, though. My own open textbook for faculty, teachers and instructors, Teaching in a Digital Age, will also be available. Already I know of at least three institutions already using it as a set book for courses, and it’s only two-thirds finished.

So my prediction:

• the chance of  every one of the BC open textbooks being used in at least one institution world wide by the end of 2015: 99%
• the chance of every BC public post-secondary institution using at least one of the open textbooks by 2015: 5%
• I’ll be happy with at least 50% of Canadian post-secondary institutions using at least one open textbook in 2015. Open textbooks will then start to take off.

2. Open educational resources

My wish: faculty in each province or state will develop agreed province wide curricula for OERs. This may seem an odd wish, but what I see happening, at least in some Canadian provinces, is a huge amount of duplication of OER production, and on the other hand, very little cross-institutional adoption.

Let’s take an example: statistics. This is a subject often taught badly (sorry, where students often have difficulties) that crosses many subject disciplines: math, physics, psychology, sociology, biology, epidemiology, engineering, etc. So what are some institutions doing: developing core modules that can be shared within the institution across departments. So far, so good. But then it stops there.

Now at least in BC we have subject articulation committees that do a good job working out transfer agreements etc. Why not set up articulation committees for OERs? Instead of investing in new OERs in each institution, why not pool resources and either find existing or develop really good new OERs that combined would make up a sensible curriculum in statistics that can be shared by institutions across the system? Get people from stats departments in all the partnering institutions to work on it so they are more likely then to use the OERs themselves. (No, it doesn’t have to be every institution – just those that can work together.) No new money is needed for this as the money would have been spent anyway in developing online materials or courses.

The chances of this happening:

• in at least one province: 50%

3. A brand new Canadian digital college

My wish: a new ‘green-field’, designed and built from scratch, institution that is conceived around the idea of digitally-based education designed to meet the learning needs of a digital age.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a really new type of post-secondary institution in Canada: Tech University of BC (died in 2003); Ryerson University (2001); UOIT (2002); Royal Roads University (1995) Any suggestions for the last one?

A lot has happened in the last 20 years. Do we need such fixed battleships as campus-based institutions when what is really needed are fast destroyers? If you can swallow the premise that at least half of all studying within the next five years will be done online, even at the most traditional campus-based institution, what would a new college built around the idea of digital education look like? Emily Carr University of Art and Design should certainly be thinking about this as it moves to new premises in Vancouver in 2017. However, it is focusing on raising huge amounts of money for – yes, a new campus.

Now what if the government said: we will increase your annual operating budget by say 5-10 per cent if you can reduce the capital budget (once off) by 50 per cent? (Some creative accountancy needed here, of course, but hey, this is Canada). Or what if we took a green field site and looked for proposals based on that formula? What would learning spaces look like on such a campus? What would the learning look like? Where and how would students study? What kind of instructors or teachers would be needed? What kind of programs and delivery methods will make sense in 30 to 50 years time? It’s about time we created institutions that will be fit for the 22nd century and they need to be designed from scratch, using what we know today about media, technology and learning.

The chances of this happening (the commitment) in 2015:

• in Alberta; 30%
• in BC: 20%
• in Ontario: 5%

4. A national research and development centre on digital education

My wish: a national research and development centre on digital education

In Canada, the Federal government has no jurisdiction over education: that is a provincial responsibility (and thank goodness for that – we get more innovation and diversity in a decentralised system)). However the Federal government does have responsibility for research and development. Now if you think, like I do, that Canada overall doesn’t do a bad job in developing and applying innovative approaches to teaching and learning (cMOOCs, anyone?), and that the future lies in effective digitally-based learning, it might be a strategic priority to ensure that Canada remains/becomes a world leader in this area.

At the moment though, there is hardly any sustainable research or development centre in online or digital education in this country (with all due respect to CIDER, which does a fantastic job with almost no resources – see what I mean?) Now you can build a hockey arena for $20 million and still  not get an NHL team, so why not put $100 million over five years into a world class research and development centre equivalent to say the Triumf project (particle physics) which got $222 million over five years in 2014.

This would have to be done right, though. No micro-managing from Ottawa, please. Write good terms of reference, hire good people, throw the money over the wall, and review the program after four years. Locate it preferably where innovation is happening (Atlantic Canada – Memorial University would be good – or the West – anywhere west of Kenora).

Here’s what I would like to see in its terms of reference:

• develop, in conjunction with Stats Canada, an annual national survey of online and other forms of digital learning in post-secondary (and possibly k-12) education, similar to the Babson survey or even better the US Dept of Education IPEDs report
• set up a joint advisory or governing board that includes representatives from related Canadian industry (e.g. Desire2Learn, Hootesuite), as well experts in online and digital education
• spend as much on development as on basic research (most of which would be contracted out, following a research and development agenda developed through national, online consultation);
• set some clear ‘deliverables’, such as regular reliable data and information on new innovations in Canadian digital education, new software or apps that become self-sustainable, testing and guidelines for faculty on emerging technologies, and above all successful, tested and evaluated design models for digital education
• use the UK JISC as a model in terms of organisation (minimal central organization, networked and outsourced R&D).
• hire me as Director (no, just kidding – I’m retired – really).

The chances of this happening in 2015:

• with me as Director: 0.001%
• without me as Director: 0.002%

5. Online International Students Canada (MOOCs for credit)

My wish: An online university preparation program for international students. This is a very simple idea. Offer free online programs for high school students anywhere in the world. The students with the best grades in the online program get automatic admission to a Canadian university and grants from the Canadian government to come to Canada and study, with half the time in Canada and the rest studying online from their home country. Target: 20,000 students a year. Total cost: $100 million a year (roughly).

There are literally millions of students who would probably qualify for a Canadian university, given the chance, but can’t afford either the education needed to reach the qualifications or the cost of coming to Canada. This program would offer online courses for the equivalent of the last year of high school in Canada, to enable international students to get the grades needed for entry to a Canadian university. The online courses would be offered free, but students would pay a small fee to take the online examinations, most of which would be computer graded.

The main costs in the program would be administrative (marketing, building a web site, finding existing online high school courses, and setting up the examination system), plus the real costs of travel for successful students and living and tuition costs while in Canada.

The advantages of the plan:

• opens access to at least some low income or poor people in developing country who have access to some form of Internet access
• simple to administer (the most difficult part will be getting Canadian universities to participate, even though there will be no direct cost)
• real costs are lowered by students living at least half the time in their own country
• students are more likely to remain in their home country after graduation and help build their own nation
• Canadian universities would get some of the best students from developing countries at no or little direct cost
• possibilities of stronger trading relations with emerging economies as a result.

The program would be funded by Foreign Affairs Canada (the former CIDA branch) and managed by the AUCC.

The chances of this happening in 2015:

• 10% (well, it is an election year).

And your wishes for 2015?

Let me know what you would like to see in online learning in 2015 – and whether my ideas are as dumb as they look at first glance.