IMS Global: Who is the average online learner?
JG: That's a good question. Since we've just launched, it's really hard to say who they will be. About 12 percent of the budget is being spent on research, to evaluate the online learning experience and determine how users make use of the content. What we've concentrated on is putting tools in place to create profiles of the learners. We can track them and determine what paths they're taking through the material. This is really a global thing so it's difficult to know just who they will be. I just had a quick peek this afternoon and the most informative feedback is looking in the forums. There's discussion taking place in the forums already and by tracking that information, we can determine what they're studying, downloading, etc.
IMS Global: Do articulation agreements of any kind currently exist with any traditional universities? Is OpenLearn accredited?
JG: No, at the moment, there is no accreditation associated with the site. It's more associated with lifelong learning and it complements someone's current knowledge.
My personal opinion is that it's pretty clear software eventually is going to be free, and the charges will be more associated with support services. It wouldn't surprise me if, at sometime in the future, a good part, if not all, of university materials will be freely available in this way. What we will be selling is accreditation. You can go to Wikipedia, you can go to all sorts of information resources on the Internet, but you can't get accreditation. That's what people are after. That, and the support services they might need.
One of the things that has always made us fairly unique in the world of distance learning is we've always had a large number of part-time employees who've served as tutors. Now they have full academic status and we call them Associate Lecturers. They've traditionally been people working in higher and further education. There are over 7,000 of them. So every graduate student has a tutor they contact if they are having problems. They have assignments during the year that they are expected to send to their tutor for marking. It would be interesting to see if students would be willing to pay for this kind of support were the business model to change.
IMS Global: What kind of a response are you getting, and what interest are you generating, from the traditional higher education community?
JG: There's a huge amount of interest. It's a bit early to say; people are watching to see what the take on this will be. We already have a partnership with the University of Manchester, which I believe is the largest university in the UK, to present some of their materials online. We also have a similar partnership with the College of Law. It's still early to say what partnerships the OpenLearn initiative will generate, but I'm sure there are a lot of organizations out there that are keen to consider this approach.
