Richard Garrett, Eduventures
Richard Garrett is the Senior Research Analyst serving Eduventures’ Learning Collaborative program for Online Higher Education. A recent addition to the Eduventures team, Richard is widely regarded as one of Europe’s foremost online higher education experts.
Prior to joining Eduventures, Richard was deputy director of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education in the United Kingdom, a position he held from 2001 to 2005. His research and consulting work has focused on higher education trends worldwide, particularly online learning, internationalization, and commercial activity. Among his recent publications is E-learning in Tertiary Education- where do we stand?, a 2005 book commissioned by the OECD, Paris. Richard has been quoted in the London Times Higher Education Supplement, Australia’s Campus Review, and the South China Morning Post. He has also served as a researcher in the School of Education, University of Surrey and at the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (U.K.). Richard earned both a B.A. and an M.A. from King’s College, University of London, as well as a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from the University of Cambridge.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
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October 20th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Here is the entire text of Richard Garrett’s remark. The audio recording will be linked from this page — soon.
Richard Garret writes, October 8, 2006
Online Higher Education in the United States- a review and outlook
In this session, I’d like to focus on one of the most dynamic forms of contemporary higher education- online learning or e-learning. My name is Richard Garrett. I’m Senior Analyst at Eduventures, a research and consulting company specializing in education. Eduventures is based in Boston in the United States of America. I lead research on Eduventures’ Online Higher Education program, which helps universities and colleges understand the online higher education market. Eduventures pioneered research into this market, and we do our utmost to continue to raise the bar in terms of the quality of the data and insight we provide to our clients.
For anyone unfamiliar with the terms online higher education or e-learning in higher education, a very broad definition might be the use of computers to support or deliver classes or learning materials. The use of computers in higher education goes back decades, yet the terms online learning and e-learning emerged little more than ten years ago. A narrower definition refers specifically to the use of computers networked to the Internet to support or deliver classes or learning materials.
Online higher education has become very prominent in the USA in recent years. A majority of colleges and universities now offer at least some online courses or online degree programs to students who may never see their instructor or fellow classmates face-to-face. Even students who attend a traditional campus increasingly use various online resources alongside the physical classroom. I want to focus on the most radical form of online higher education- where the student may never attend a traditional campus at all.
Why have universities and colleges embraced online learning in recent years, and why are many students so enthusiastic? What can be said for the various claims made for online higher education- that is it cheaper to deliver, offers a higher quality learning experience, and breaks down geographic restrictions on access? How big might online higher education become, and how do developments in the USA compare internationally?
I have been tracking and analyzing online higher education for almost ten years, both in the USA and around the world. In the 1990s, online learning in higher education grew from many small experiments and projects, before gaining incredible momentum during the dotcom boom that took place between 1997 and 2000 in the USA and certain other countries. Online learning was part of this flurry of interest in the Internet, prompting outlandish claims that within a few years the cost of higher education would be slashed, everyone from Boston to Beirut would be able to take online classes at Harvard, and bricks-and-mortar universities would be swept aside. Hundreds of millions of dollars were thrown at online higher education, and commentators were by turn either very enthusiastic, or very worried.
Looking back in 2006, what really happened? Well, online higher education inevitably has not lived up to the wild predictions of the dotcom era, but has become (in the USA at least) increasingly popular. Eduventures research suggests that around 1.2 million students in the USA were taking wholly online degrees and certificates at the close of 2005. This is up from virtually zero ten years ago, and represents around 7% of all US higher education students. Universities and colleges of every size and shape now offer online degrees and other programs. Ivy League schools, major state universities and community colleges all play in this market. There are a number of large companies that run online universities, such as University of Phoenix Online, which has over 150,000 online students.
Online higher education has, so far, appealed primarily, not to the traditional-age student straight out of high school, but to the busy adult, who might have missed out on college the first time around, or who wants to gain new skills in pursuit of promotion or career change. Many adults need to combine study with a full-time job, and family responsibilities, and so value the convenience and flexibility of online higher education- being able to take a class any time day or night, repeat a class as many times as you like, and study at a pace that suits you. Online higher education tends to focus on instruction and career relevance, and puts to one side the clubs and societies, sports and socializing of the traditional campus, things that many working adults are less interested in or simply don’t have time for.
Going back to those wild claims of the dotcom period… online degrees and certificates are typically not priced lower than traditional programs; prices tend to be about the same. Contrary to predictions that the Internet would make higher education very cheap to deliver, colleges and universities have found inevitably that costs vary depending on the technology, techniques and staffing used. Indeed, online delivery may introduce new costs, such as the development, purchasing and maintenance of technology, and various categories of specialist staff. With students able to post questions and submit assignments 24 hours a day, online higher education can be very labor-intensive for the instructor. While automation has streamlined some administrative work, the human instructor remains center-stage. This has kept class sizes small, and instructor costs up. The vision of thousands of students taking entirely automated classes online, offering very attractive economies of scale, is nowhere near reality.
In 2006- contrary to some dotcom predictions, not everyone is studying online at Harvard. Instead of consolidating higher education in a small number of prestigious universities, online delivery is increasingly offered (in some form or other) across all types of college and university. Some schools have grown much larger through online delivery, and some pioneers have a disproportionate share of the market, but the longer-term trend seems to be that online higher education will fall into line with established institutional patterns, and not the other way around. In the world of online higher education, traditional college and universities are very much alive and well.
An interesting finding from Eduventures research is that much online higher education is local; that is, the student lives quite close to the college or university. Our research suggests that this is because many prospective students are more comfortable taking an online degree or certificate from a school they are familiar with, and can visit, as necessary, for academic or administrative reasons. This desire on the part of many prospective students to combine the convenience of online study and geographical proximity of the institution, perhaps ironically keeps online higher education in line with physical boundaries. That said, significant number of online students do embrace the dotcom vision of being able to take online classes from a schools hundreds or thousands of miles away. Indeed, as consumer comfort with online higher education grows, preference for local schools may fade.
What are some of the problems associated with online higher education, at least in the United States? Online higher education still faces skeptical consumers, instructors and employers who regard this kind of experience as inherently inferior to the traditional classroom. This argument against online higher education is either that the absence of a face-to-face setting means that instructor/student interaction must be insufficient to permit an adequate learning environment; or that online delivery is somehow “easy” or even fraudulent. As familiarity with online delivery grows, such attitudes are likely to diminish. The bottom line is that the quality of the educational experience is best judged on a program-by-program basis, and not by delivery mode. There are good and bad online programs, just as there are good bad campus-based programs. What makes a good program- high quality materials, instructor guidance, student discussion- can be achieved both in a classroom and online.
To date, online higher education has had a somewhat narrow discipline focus- with lots of emphasis on strongly career-related programs in business, information technology etc, and much less on arts and sciences. This reflects the adult market, but confines wholly online delivery to only a sub-section of the higher education. It could also be argued that much online higher education does not live up to the rhetoric of “revolutionary technology”. Some online text, discussion and a test or two- the format of many online programs- can no longer be described as innovative. It will be interesting to see whether immersive simulations and a genuinely international student body might do more to bring substance to this “revolutionary” vision.
Competitive will be a strong driver of innovation in all aspects of online higher education in the USA. As more colleges and universities enter the market, simply being online is no longer sufficient to stand out. Online schools now have to compete against each other, as well as against the traditional campus. The Online Higher Education program at Eduventures is precisely designed to help schools grasp these shifting market dynamics.
Finally, how does online higher education in the USA compare internationally? Data is poor, but it appears that no other online higher education market is as large or developed as that in the USA. A key reason for this, in my view, is that the US has the oldest mass higher education system in the world. Higher education is firmly embedded in personal and government thinking about socio-economic development; and it is simply more “normal” in the US than perhaps anywhere else to pursue personal and career advancement by means of higher education- particularly among adults. In many countries, higher education is primarily the preserve of traditional age students straight out of high school. The US is also the largest knowledge economy in the world, an economic emphasis that is particularly dependent on a population educated at higher education level. In addition, the US has the largest commercial higher education system in the world; and it was this sector that was especially quick to embrace online delivery. In all these ways, online higher education slotted into this US higher education environment very easily.
However, there is every reason to think that as Internet technology becomes more pervasive, higher education system become larger and more open to adults, and economies give increased attention to knowledge economies, many other countries will also embrace online higher education in a big way. Different countries will move at different speeds, but the convenience of online delivery will appeal everywhere. In many countries, national and regional governments have made significant investments in online infrastructure, and we will see these markets develop in interesting ways in the next decade.
To conclude, I predict that online higher education will constitute an increasingly significant proportion of higher education as a whole in the US. Campus-based higher education will, at the same time, continue to absorb various online technologies to augment face-to-face study. I do not think that all US higher education will ever be delivered wholly online; but various combinations of online and campus-based delivery will become evermore common and normal. Online higher education is still in the relatively early stages of development, and much innovation may be expected in the future. The ultimate test of online higher education is whether it increases access, and supports positive learning outcomes. So far, the evidence looks good, but I look forward to continuing our work at EV to work with our member schools to continue to realize online higher education’s full potential.