This section presented by David Farquhar who has recently has been running the ‘Interactive University’ – a global e-Learning publisher which publishes and distributes Scottish Higher and Further Education sector.

DF is drawing comparison between IU (Interactive University) and the UKeU – the former having a 30th of the funding of the latter. IU was not looking at educational standards – it was just there to maximise the international distribution of Scottish Education. The Target Market was accdredited post-compulsory education in the developing world. IU is not-for-profit – any profit has to be reinvested in the business. Has partnerships with a significant part of the Scottish HE sector.

IU has developed a ‘scholar’ programme with around 70,000 students – they believe it to be the largest single e-learning programme in the world (although – should this be distance learning?)

DF outlines a key challenge for HE sector, which is between educational excellence, and business survival.

The educational philosophy behind the IU is geared around ‘content is central, but not sufficient’; ‘context is crucial, and is essential’; ‘communities are captivating; and increase motivation’

DF sees the ‘contextualisation’ as a major challenge – personalisation and localisation is key to effective use of the content by the students.

Seem to be some similarity to the OKI idea – this is the MIT initiative to put their ‘courses’ online for free. They basically argue that it is the contextualisation that MIT staff bring to the courses (and the MIT qualification) that adds the value that you get when you attend MIT.

DF also sees the technology as basically ‘done’ – we shouldn’t be worrying about the tech, but rather about the customers (a.k.a students). He thinks we just need to start getting the stuff out there (in the marketplace), and we need to do more of this.

Interestingly the global competition is from Australia and Canada – both large countries with sparse populations – perhaps this is because they already have domestic experience? But apparently also a lot more local competition – e.g. more attractive for an Indian to attend university in Dubai, than in the US or UK – especially if that university is an outpost of a well respected US or UK institution.

Also starting to be true that local degrees have more respect locally than UK degrees.

Key barriers include the standards of english (I’d suggest this is true of those coming to the UK as well); teaching practices – very different ways of teaching in other cultures; infrastructure supply – if you can’t get electricity, you can’t deliver e-learning; current business models – are we doing distance learning, bringing students to the UK, branch campuses, partnering with local institutions…

Seems to be a trend towards presence in other countries and away from bringing foreign students into the UK. Distance learning is not growing. Challenge for UK insitutions – need to get local presence in other countries, rather than rely on students coming onto the UK campus.

DF challenges Universities to regard themselves more as businesses, without comprimising academic standards. They also need to look at how much programmes cost, understanding whether they are profitable or not.

DF outlining issues with Distance Learning – most students want f2f tutoring, and DL works better at Masters level and above – which is a small slice of the market.

Local partners are becoming more sophisticated and discerning – they won’t just partner with anyone now.

What is your differentor?

Challenges – Global competition
Insitutional motivation and structures
Models of delivery
Systainability, profitability
Local partner sophistication
What is your differentiator?
What is your value proposition?

DF refers to a British Council report relating to some of these issues, which sounds interesting.

Challenges – Customer sophistication
My lifestyle
My culture
My needs
I want to be in charge
Undergraduate vs Postgraduate – Undergraduate market saturated in quite a few areas (e.g. IT in India) – so more opportunity for niche market models, usually means postgraduate.

Challenges – Customer Mobility
I want to go to your country to study (edutourism)
I have to stay at home
I want to go to a great destination
Rise of TNE (trans-national education – selling UK degrees through local partners)

Challenges – Knowledge Transfer
Are we empowering competition – how do you stay ahead?
Figure out value chain
What can we learn? Looking at agreeing qualifications

Challenges – Enabling Technologies
Pervasive technologies
Good quality content – content management systems; outsourcing content creation?
Who puts in the electricity?
Games and team-based – company called tpld, games or scenario based learning
Partnering

Educational enablers
Faculty English and capability – huge issue in China
Applicant English
Massive investment needed
Student centered learning
Partnering