Daniel Conn left school at 18 and started work as an
administrator for Mercedes-Benz near his home in Brighton. He soon
wished he hadn't spurned the idea of going to university and began
investigating
Open University (OU) courses, but he never quite found the courage to apply.
Then
he discovered the OU's OpenLearn website, which offers 650 Open
University study units free online. After working his way through four
in computing and maths (and doing an online
Harvard University course on the side) he thought he might as well get a qualification.
Now approaching 30, he is studying for a part-time OU degree in computing, which he hopes to finish in 2015.
"The
OpenLearn materials give you the gist of what the course is about and
whether you can do it," he says. "It definitely gave me a lot of
confidence."
The OU is not the only university that has started
offering courses free online. Over the past couple of years increasing
numbers of universities across Europe and the US have set up web-based
resources known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These MOOCs make
recorded lectures, course materials and academic discussion forums
freely available to anyone who wants to use them.
Jonathan Kydd, dean of the
University of London
International Programmes, which last month began offering free courses
in psychology, computer programming and law through the US online
education provider Coursera, says the involvement of top-rated
institutions such as Stanford and Harvard has made this kind of free
distance learning particularly appealing.
"You are going to inspire
students
because they are going to get [access to] a high proportion of people
who are household names and who are both great researchers and great
teachers," he says.
Universities use free courses not only as a
shop window for the other courses they offer, but also as a way of
sharing good practice with other institutions, experimenting with new
technology and of seeing what does and doesn't work in distance
education, Kydd says.
This is important because the availability
of higher bandwidths and progress in developing effective systems of
online assessment, combined with increasing demand, means that paid-for
distance learning is also booming.
According to the
Higher Education
Statistics Agency, the number of distance learning students registered
at UK institutions grew from 238,800 in 2006/07, to 271,445 in 2010/11.
Tony
Hopwood, chief assessor for the Open and Distance Learning Quality
Council, says the increase is particularly marked in the university
sector, which is now competing with dedicated distance learning
organisations.
Gráinne Conole, professor of learning innovation at the
University of Leicester,
says this is out of necessity. "We know worldwide that bricks and
mortar universities don't have the capacity to deal with the number of
students there are going to be in future, particularly in places like
India and China, so online learning has to be the way to go."
The
University of Derby
is one institution to recognise this, setting up a separate department
to focus on online distance learning students with academic systems and
tutors dedicated to their specific needs.
Joy Rickard, who is
studying for an undergraduate certificate in educational psychology at
Derby from her home near Bath, says she feels the benefits. For her,
distance learning means the flexibility to look after her two young
children and work part-time in a school while studying alongside a
global student cohort.
"I have met some people online who are
doing fascinating things all over the world, which wouldn't have
happened if I was attending in person," she says.
Certainly online
learning deepens the pool of potential students. Kydd says London
University's International Programmes distance learning model, which
allows students to take courses over time and pay incrementally, makes
it affordable for students from Africa who would otherwise never be able
to take a degree.
And the University of Leicester is about to
launch an MSc in security, conflict and international development,
designed to meet the needs of international development workers deployed
in post-conflict countries, who would normally find study impossible.
Because access to the internet can be tricky in such countries, the
students receive an iPad on which they download the course app and
related ebooks, all accessible without an internet connection. They can
then download other materials when they find a Wi-Fi connection.
Campus life
New courses run by
Plymouth University
are similarly designed for hard-to-reach students. The university is
offering undergraduate and postgraduate diplomas, and master's-level
programmes in hydrography for students working on oil rigs and survey
vessels, sometimes thousands of miles from the nearest university.
But what about missing out on campus life? Rickard, who studied graphic design at the
University of Wales, Newport
before having children, says she feels she has "done" student life and
is now more interested in developing a career. Conn, who has just
started a full-time job as a technology developer off the back of his
studies, says his local OU student union and online forums keep him
happy.
"You don't feel like you're on your own," he says. "The
only thing I'm missing is living in a rundown squat for a couple of
years and leaving with masses of debt."
Owing to the steady economic growth and globalisation, education in India is no longer just a teacher talking to a bunch of students in a classroom. With more than 370 million internet users and hundreds of local as well as global business tycoons willing to invest in the future of education, online education in India has picked up pace. In fact, the e-learning market in the country is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion.
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