Attend our Global Forum

Ready or Not - The Role of Online Learning in Higher Education

11-12 December, London

Whatever you call it- online, digital, virtual, e-learning- it has been a rough ride. In the 1990's, champions imagined a near-future of dramatically better access to higher education, a wealth of online learning resources and plummeting costs. All over the world, students would be able to enrol at the best universities, and all but the top institutions would perish. Reality proved a bit more complicated.

Twenty years on, bricks-and-mortar universities are very much alive, and most international students still travel, but it is undeniable that online learning is growing in popularity. Internet access has surged, bandwidth exploded and smartphones are ubiquitous. MOOCs, adaptive learning and AI-based student advising are the latest examples of online education. A growing number of traditional universities are partnering with the private sector to launch online degrees.

Is online higher education about to realise its promise?

The OBHE's 2017 Global Forum will reassess the potential of online and blended learning in higher education, to meet the needs of domestic and international students. Drawing on a unique series of country studies from around the world, this event is an opportunity to engage with the latest data, learn from experience, and consider new models and technologies.

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 19 June 2017

Joseph A Planell, President of the UOC, weighs in on the future of online HE in Catalonia, Spain

Rachael Merola, Senior Researcher, OBHE

Spain’s Universitat Oberta Catalunya (The UOC) was the world’s first online university and it currently is the only fully online university with more than 20 years’ experience and more than 58,000 graduates. The UOC is a university specialised in e-learning and the knowledge society, providing people lifelong learning and educational opportunities through both formal and non-formal training, contributing to their occupational and personal development.

The UOC model is designed to be followed fully online and has an asynchronous nature. Exams are still the only element that require physical presence of the student. Nevertheless, one of the UOC’s stated objectives is to replace them by online evaluation processes, as identity verification systems are implemented.

In terms of research, the UOC expertise lies in the study of the Internet and the effects of the interaction between digital technologies and human activity.

In the academic year 2015-2016, UOC reports:

• 61,122 graduates and 76,072 qualifications issued, comprising 30 ECTS credits or more each.
• 63,873 students.
• 374 full-time and 3.167 part-time professors.
• More than 150 collaboration agreements with other universities

OPEN ACESS.

15 June 2017

Battling the Great Recession:
Online Higher Education in Spain

Rachael Merola, Senior Researcher, OBHE

Spain is a distance learning pioneer: in 1972 the federal government founded one of the world’s first national distance learning universities, the National Distance Education University (UNED), and in 1995 the region of Catalonia created a ground breaking online university, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

What does online higher education, distance and blended, look like in Spain today?

This article looks at the status of online learning in Spain and how it grew during the country’s economic crisis beginning in 2008, as well as its current direction and potential for the future.

Full article available for members.

11 May 2017

MOOCs to the Rescue -
Taking stock of 20 years of online HE in Malaysia

Doria Abdullah, OBHE Associate
Postdoctoral fellow, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Malaysia has a 20-year history with online learning, spanning infrastructure investment, new universities and, more recently, an effort to harness MOOCs.

Wave 1 (late 1990s): Cyber-infrastructure and integration of technology and education 

It all began with a vision to transform Malaysia into a knowledge-based society. The government aspired to integrate information technology across a broad range of sectors such as government services, commerce, education and urban planning, among others. The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), envisioned as a chain of tax-efficient industrial clusters and business incubators, was introduced in 1996. The centerpiece was Cyberjaya, a township thirty minutes away from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), attracting a range of multinationals, such as IBM, DHL and HP and housing new agencies such as the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDeC) and the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT).

The private Multimedia University (MMU) was established in Cyberjaya in 1999, tied to Telekom Malaysia (TM), the country’s communications service provider, to provide a steady stream of graduates versed in the latest technologies. MMU is a campus-based institution- now with three campuses in Malaysia- but has a growing presence in blended and online learning.

In mainstream education, at the primary and secondary level, selected schools were transformed into “smart schools” (‘Sekolah Bestari’) that prioritised multimedia courseware and online resources. Schools outside of the initiative were given special funding for laptops, broadband and teacher training. At the tertiary level, learning management systems (LMS) were introduced.

Full article available for members.

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