OU news event, moment for newspapers ahead of BETT
This post will be revised ahead of BETT ( end Jan 2018 ) and after. Please rewrite, quote, add something. Some sort of news emerges around this time. OU is making sensible claims for Futurelearn. Implication is that a change for newspapers has already happened.
( Off topic already, I am reminded of how Jeff Jarvis describes how a story leads to another one depending on feedback. Cannot find the diagram at the moment but it will turn up later.)
On the 22nd Nov Peter Horrocks lectured at Durham on the role of Distance Learning for universities. The OU website has a summary and link to the full text. What strikes me is the comparison with the situation for news organisations, especially newspapers. Horrocks previously worked in news including the BBC. He talks about the same "fortress mentality" then in news as now inside the campus.
I have been looking for some sort of "event" as news to show that Futurelearn has arrived. Also to relate a discussion on "disruption". Business Schools still seem to be outside the story for their own situation. Conversation would change when they are involved in decisions around change. So far in the UK only the OU and Futurelearn seem to make major decisions around priority for investment.
There is a fairly clear claim about Futurelean as a platform, based on an implication that newspapers face a crunch, now too late to launch something similar.
Some detail on news
My guess is that there will be some more events soon around closure of print resources in the UK, not sure when, but the tone of this lecture is striking. Whatever the timescale for universities turns out to be, the situation for news is fairly clear at this time.
BETT started with schools but there is now much interest from HE and FE. Some of the topics in the Horrocks lecture will come up again. Including the possible reduction on costs that technology might afford. Apple no longer pays for a stand but there was a talk a couple of years ago. Futurelearn is at a point where there could be some news to draw more attention to these ideas.
( Off topic already, I am reminded of how Jeff Jarvis describes how a story leads to another one depending on feedback. Cannot find the diagram at the moment but it will turn up later.)
On the 22nd Nov Peter Horrocks lectured at Durham on the role of Distance Learning for universities. The OU website has a summary and link to the full text. What strikes me is the comparison with the situation for news organisations, especially newspapers. Horrocks previously worked in news including the BBC. He talks about the same "fortress mentality" then in news as now inside the campus.
I have been looking for some sort of "event" as news to show that Futurelearn has arrived. Also to relate a discussion on "disruption". Business Schools still seem to be outside the story for their own situation. Conversation would change when they are involved in decisions around change. So far in the UK only the OU and Futurelearn seem to make major decisions around priority for investment.
There is a fairly clear claim about Futurelean as a platform, based on an implication that newspapers face a crunch, now too late to launch something similar.
In the world of journalism in the UK, there was never a concerted effort to create a shared platform for value and quality in news content, a platform that might have provided a bulwark against US platforms. The UK HE sector is fortunate that it does have such a “best of British universities” platform in FutureLearn, because of the foresight of the OU. It surprises me how few HE policy makers and universities really grasp the strategic importance of the UK having, under university control, a platform of such strength.
Some detail on news
The speed of change in the news industry has been startling. A Pew Research Center report released earlier this month revealed that over a quarter of US adults, mainly younger, now source their news from multiple social media sites, almost double the proportion from four years ago.5 Pew Research also report that, in the five years up to 2016, advertising by digital media increased thirtyfold for mobile, more than doubled for digital, and almost halved for newspapers.
My guess is that there will be some more events soon around closure of print resources in the UK, not sure when, but the tone of this lecture is striking. Whatever the timescale for universities turns out to be, the situation for news is fairly clear at this time.
BETT started with schools but there is now much interest from HE and FE. Some of the topics in the Horrocks lecture will come up again. Including the possible reduction on costs that technology might afford. Apple no longer pays for a stand but there was a talk a couple of years ago. Futurelearn is at a point where there could be some news to draw more attention to these ideas.
So far the lecture from Durham not much reported. Cannot find anything on Twitter. News only in Times Higher Education. They concentrate on the idea of "LinkedIn Degrees". At Learning Technologies just after BETT , (Olympia in Feb ) LinkedIn Learning will have a stand. There may be some academics who consider this sort of technical, vocational course can work online whereas the "Mode One" subjects continue as normal. Comment welcome, more in future versions of this story.
The Guardian has not recently reported much in this area. Peter Scott has stated that he will not write about the MOOC and he sticks to this. The Guardian seems to me reluctant to inform readers what it thinks is going on with print. Maybe this will change along with the thinking on unis. Connected somehow.
