Journal of Management DevelopmentBlended learning and learning communities: opportunities and challengesJames Fleck

Article information:To cite this document:James Fleck, (2012),"Blended learning and learning communities: opportunities and challenges", Journal ofManagement Development, Vol. 31 Iss 4 pp. 398 - 411Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02621711211219059

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ALTERNATIVE MODELS

Blended learning and learningcommunities: opportunities

and challengesJames Fleck

Open University Business School, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the nature and development of blended learningand the emerging notion of learning communities, with particular reference to management andbusiness education.Design/methodology/approach – In total, four specific models are explored to highlight someof the issues involved and the challenges and opportunities arising. These models draw primarilyon experience with the UK’s Open University, arguably the most successful exponent of blendedlearning and widely emulated around the world. In particular, the simplistic idea of “content” versusdelivery is critiqued, the primacy of technology rather than pedagogy is challenged and theimportance of fine operational details in achieving an appropriate fit for the required purposes isstressed.Findings – There is no doubt that blended learning will become more prevalent. Even conventionalface-to-face campus-based teaching operations will use on-line activities as important supportingelements, and information and resources available over the web will take over from printed libraryresources.Originality/value – The challenges and opportunities of blended learning are summarized in thispaper.

Keywords United Kingdom, Distance learning, Learning methods, Teaching methods,Business studies, Open University, Blended learning

Paper type Viewpoint

1. IntroductionIn recent years interest has increased in “blended learning”, in which traditional face-to-face teaching is combined in varying mixes with other elements, notably on-linesupported activity.

The role of technology has been crucial in enabling these developments. There isoften considerable excited anticipation that some new innovation – video on demand;the web; virtual presence or most recently social media – will usher in a majorbreakthrough in educational provision. This, it is sometimes suggested, might evenamount to a “disruptive innovation[1]”, which will render obsolete the traditional waysof doing things and enable new organisations to dominate the educational arena. At thevery least it is expected that existing conventional providers will have to adopt the newmethods in order to survive[2].

In this paper, I examine the development of blended learning and the emergingfocus on the notion of learning communities, with particular consideration ofmanagement and business education. I will explore some of the issues involvedand conclude with an outline of what I believe to be the challenges and opportunitiesafforded by these developments[3].

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/0262-1711.htm

Journal of Management DevelopmentVol. 31 No. 4, 2012pp. 398-411r Emerald Group Publishing Limited0262-1711DOI 10.1108/02621711211219059

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To this end, I first briefly introduce the nature of blended learning and of learningcommunities. In order to ground the discussion, several different models are describedin greater detail to surface the pertinent issues. These models draw primarily onexperience with the UK’s Open University (OU), arguably the most successful exponentof blended learning and widely emulated around the world. The key issues are thenaddressed before a conclusion, which summarises the challenges and opportunities.

2. Blended learning and learning communitiesThe term “blended learning” usually refers to a mix of conventional face-to-faceelements combined with on-line elements. However, this is at too general a level for indepth analysis, while the term “blend” perhaps suggests too homogeneous a mix: inpractice the mix is more “lumpy”, more a chunky fruit salad than a blended smoothie.At one extreme it is becoming routine for campus-based virtual learning environments(VLEs) to be used to provide additional notes and materials supporting conventionallectures. At another extreme, on-line processes may be supplemented by episodicface-to-face, often residential, events. Another relevant dimension is the synchronousvs asynchronous character of the on-line provision and distinct advantages can beidentified for each approach. Yet another pertinent aspect is that of so-called “content”vs delivery processes. With the advent of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement andthe availability of vast amounts of information over the web, content or “knowledgeassets” are becoming commoditised, if not free. As a consequence, the emphasis isshifting to consideration of how to help students navigate through the huge stores ofinformation available, and how salient information might be delivered in a timely andcompact way.

With the advent of “Web 2.0” and the varieties of social media now emerging, thesocial dimension of on-line interactions is attracting considerable attention and indeedincreasing concern. These approaches intrinsically involve communities, or at leastsocial groupings of various forms, such as “followers” on Twitter or “friends” onFacebook. The potential power of these groupings both for emancipatory democraticexpression as well as for criminal physical destruction has been amply illustratedby their use in the organisation of rebellions in the Arab spring of 2011 and riots inLondon over the summer of 2011. However, the potential of such groupings to promoteeducational goals is still at an early stage, certainly as far as their systematicincorporation into teaching and learning processes is concerned.

3. Different models of blended learningIn this section a series of four models are outlined. As well as illustrating the range ofpossibilities, the series incorporates a developmental dynamic, through which it issuggested many providers will eventually pass. The models are drawn from experiencewith the UK’s Open University Business School, which has exhibited thisdevelopmental pattern.

The OU was set up in 1969. It had an explicit social mission to provide educationalaccess to those who were otherwise denied the opportunity for learning. There isno doubt that it has succeeded beyond expectations. Indeed, the Prime Ministerresponsible, Harold Wilson, reckoned it as the greatest contribution of his premiership,his “proudest legacy”. Its success continues today. Despite having about 250,000students, it regularly features among the top three universities in the governmentNational Student Survey of satisfaction, alongside such illustrious institutions asOxford and Cambridge Universities[4]. The OU has been widely emulated around the

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world, with some 50 or so organisations set up along broadly similar lines, albeit withwidely varying reputations for quality. These include IGNOU, the Indira GandhiNational Open University in India with two and a half million students, the world’slargest university, and the Arab Open University, which provides education fordisadvantaged students across seven Arab nations in the Middle East.

3.1 Correspondence and broadcast modelsIn order to deliver its mission the OU adopted a radically different approach toteaching and learning than conventional universities of the time. From the outset, thisexplicitly involved a combination (or blend) of elements. This included broadcastlectures in association with the BBC (indeed the new university was first dubbed the“University of the Air”) together with printed course materials sent by surface mail incorrespondence course style. It also included, vitally, tutor support for students,delivered through tutorial meetings and the celebrated OU residential “summerschools”.

In the early days of the OU, the BBC lectures, famously featuring longhaired earnestlecturers in “talking head” format, were broadcast in the early hours of the morningwhen normal TV programming had finished. It was also originally expected that theOU would have no permanent academic faculty of its own, but would be able to drawon external conventional faculty from other universities. This model thus comprised ablend of the following four elements:

(1) use of external conventional faculty;

(2) “talking heads” broadcast lectures;

(3) “correspondence” printed materials; and

(4) face-to-face tutorials and summer schools.

Variants of this initial mix or blend are still the standard for many if not most blendedlearning operations today, although increasingly delivery of the written coursematerials is achieved by means of the internet rather than via surface mail[5]. Andtypically, the “talking heads” videos are delivered on-line using off the shelf packages.However, the Chinese television and radio educational operations still use broadcastto reach their vast audiences. And many operations, especially private and for-profitorganisations such as the University of Phoenix and Universitas21, routinely make useof contracted external faculty to prepare their written materials.

3.2 Purpose-designed quality distance education modelAs the OU gained experience during its early development, a distinctive approachemerged, latterly to be termed “Supported Open Learning”. Various insightscontributed to the creation of this model. First, it was discovered that dedicated faculty,explicitly focused on distance education and its specific challenges were to bepreferred. This enabled the institution to build its knowledge and apply itsystematically to the production of courses. Second, the experience with BBC TVproduction, even though the programmes were relatively simple, provided acompelling team-based exemplar of production that transferred naturally to the nottoo dissimilar application of producing entire distance education courses. This gavebirth to what was probably the key innovation that has driven all subsequentoperations at the OU; namely courses produced by “course teams[6]”. This was and isin sharp distinction to the conventional method of academic course production where a

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sole academic devises a set of lectures and essentially “owns” the courses in theirentirety, from conception through teaching to assessment.

The team approach ensured that not only was the subject matter well founded andtimely rather than idiosyncratically reflecting the views of one individual, but itenabled the systematic consideration of pedagogic principles, professional editingand explicit design for effective delivery over a variety of media. All of these factorscontributed to the production of courses to a very high and consistent level of quality.

The team approach also facilitated the development of a specialist division oflabour, which further underpinned quality. In particular, the role of tutoring andfacilitating the students’ learning became identified as involving a specific set ofskills, quite separate from the course subject definition and production phases. Thecareful selection and training of tutors with relevant backgrounds (of industrial andbusiness experience in the case of management education) enabled a more consistentlevel of support for students that has been reflected in the OU’s high scores forsatisfaction in the government National Student Surveys.

A final crucial element for delivering a quality educational experience was adeveloped infrastructure for supporting the logistic and technology aspects of theoverall blend. The technology (servers, electronic forums, VLEs and so on) has to beextremely robust. Otherwise, the experience of the students is massively impactedand they rapidly lose faith in using the technological facilities, tending to opt for otheralternatives. Likewise the processes and protocols for allocating students to tutors andfor ensuring the integrity of the assessment processes have to be rigorous,necessitating a highly sophisticated operation. Just ensuring the timely and accuratepostal delivery of printed course materials requires careful planning, warehousing andincurs considerable costs. In a conventional face-to-face campus operation, errors canbe easily recovered by issuing corrections at regular class hours.

The blend of these elements constitutes the OU Supported Open Learning model,which arguably sets the standard for quality delivery at scale, and comprises:

. dedicated faculty focused on course design;

. course team produced materials;

. structured support from associate lecturers (tutors); and

. professional logistics infrastructure for scale delivery.

As noted this model embodies a distinctive division of labour in what is effectively afactory production style of operation, very different from the traditional “craft-based”face-to-face lecturer who covers all aspects of the course from conception to assessmentand reporting. At the OU course teams typically involve several to several dozenacademics who collectively wrestle with the ideas and devise original and effectiveways of presenting them in concert with the other specialists, with primacy over thevalue chain accorded to the academic component. This involves considerableinvestment in new course development, amounting to several millions of dollars for ayear’s equivalent study, and contrasts with cheaper alternatives in which a “goodenough” academic base (often a standard textbook) is serially processed by“instructional designers” and other specialists into the finished product.

The precise division of labour associated with this model varies widely, but typicallythe tutor’s role becomes separately defined, and specialists in various aspects of mediaproduction can also be identified. Notably the term “SME” (subject matter expert) is

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widely used by commercially oriented providers, usually to refer to subcontractedproviders of the basic content, which is then processed by other production specialists.Thus Universitas21 and other for-profits deploy production teams who take the rawacademic input and process it with “instructional designers” and other designatedspecialists to produce the end product.

With an articulated division of labour it further becomes possible to “unbundle thevalue-chain” to break up the process and farm out different bits to specialistsubcontractors. This is the basis for the emergence of a range of specialist educationalproviders. A recent confidential survey for the OU by The Parthenon Group (2010)found that the majority of online and distance learning specialist providers were fromthe USA, where competitive pressures have also led to more innovation and a greaterdegree of disaggregation across the value chain. A leading example in the BusinessSchool world is Laureate, who provide dedicated tutors and marketing services, asfor example in their partnership with the University of Liverpool. Another example isSunGard Higher Education, who identify SMEs at the partner institution and thenundertake course development and production with their own in-house team ofinstructional designers. They have worked in this way with Pepperdine Universityto produce a Masters Course in Social Entrepreneurship and Change, made up of60 per cent face-to-face and 40 per cent online[7].

3.3 Practice-based modelIn the Open University Business School, another element has recently been introducedinto the blend, by explicitly harnessing the students’ working contexts into thelearning process. Through careful design of the learning experience as a whole and byincorporating activities and exercises that directly require the participants to reflect onexisting working practices or actively initiate new ones, the blend can be extendedbeyond the immediate teaching context into the students’ own professional practice.In order to do this effectively, students have, perforce, to negotiate and involvetheir working colleagues in the overall learning process. This has the effect of creatinga dynamic learning community that is integrated through a variety of dialogues:between learning materials and students; between tutors and students; betweenstudent peers; and above all between students and their work colleagues. The methodsand details for doing this effectively are still being explored and refined. A wide rangeof pedagogic techniques is available: action learning; work-based learning; peerlearning; problem-based learning; and project-based learning[8]. Ultimately, everydaywork becomes the platform for learning, while teaching becomes a form ofmanagement coaching which sensitises participants to the key issues and enablesthem to understand those issues in wider theoretical, industrial and culturalcontexts.

Not only does this lead to a powerful form of learning that is directly relevant topractical business life (an excellent thing for management education) but itfundamentally shifts the focus of course development from writing materials todevising the sequence of activities that students need to undertake to completetheir learning journey; that is, to designing explicitly the learning experience.Serendipitously, it turns out that this is exactly the type of discipline that is necessaryfor crafting on-line interactions, as opposed to simply using the internet as a deliverychannel for printed materials via pdfs, for example[9].

It also turns out that the simple yet demanding discipline of identifying the desiredlearning outcomes is precisely what is needed to provide the design specification for a

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set of activities as well as “writing a course”. Moreover, assessment is in its own rightyet another highly pertinent (especially for students) activity and needs to be explicitlydesigned as part of the learning experience at the outset, not merely inserted as atedious afterthought (as is all too often true of conventional examination setting).Students typically devote more than 25 per cent of their overall workload toassessment. In a very real sense, then, there is no such thing as “summativeassessment”; it is all formative and should therefore be designed into courses as such.

Further, a practice-based orientation suggests a distinctive role for face-to-faceevents. Rather than just being occasions for teachers to transmit knowledge tostudents, such events as residential schools can be designed to maximise interactionsbetween student peers with relevant experience to share, and to facilitate thedevelopment of real-world business relationships that can offer considerable valuebeyond the merely didactic benefits of transmission teaching.

This practice-based learning model thus adds yet another major element to theblend and is particularly appropriate for management education. In summary, asfollowed by the Open University Business School, this model is characterised by:

. professional practice as a platform for learning;

. a focus on design of the learning experience;

. learning goals that drive design and assessment;

. an emphasis on student centred learning;

. routine use of facilitative tutor support, using both VLE and face-to-face events;

. careful design of face-to-face residential schools;

. production of educationally sound documentaries (BBC) and other “knowledgeassets”; and

. elaboration of quality assurance and enhancement.

Currently, following the many well-known criticisms of business education in generaland the MBA in particular, there is a “turn to practice” and many providers now stresshow they are incorporating practical aspects into their programmes. Of course theoriginal Harvard case method was designed precisely for this purpose and recentlythey have explored how to take this online (Sensiper, 2002), but few efforts go so far asto shift the focus radically onto the work community.

3.4 Learning community modelThe practice-based model starts explicitly to harness the dynamics of learningcommunities. Even in conventional face-to-face lecturing there is an implicit communitydimension. Indeed, students often report that they learn more from their peers than fromthe lecturer. However, such community aspects are usually accidental or at bestopportunistic, as happens with group work for instance. With the shift to the explicitdesign of the holistic learning experience, community aspects have to be explicitlyaccommodated throughout the process. Peer pressure is a powerful force, but has to becarefully considered to avoid undesirable behaviours, such as group bullying.

We are only at the beginning of understanding how learning communities work,and how powerful and sometimes even dangerous group dynamics can be ethicallyand effectively harnessed. The analysis provided by Etienne Wenger has proved veryhelpful (Wenger, 1998). One approach systematically considers the conditions needed

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to create a learning organisation, one in which not only the students engagecontinuously with learning but all the personnel involved[10].

At the same time, thanks largely to the web and readily accessible searchprocedures, raw information and data (i.e. “content”) is available very easily andincreasingly at little or no cost. Various OCW initiatives are making well-craftededucational materials more widely available: the celebrated MIT OCW project[11],OpenLearn at the OU[12], iTunes U from Apple[13] and others; all these are effectivelyrendering “content” a free or cheap commodity. Together these developments arefostering a shift in teaching and learning from simple knowledge transmission inwhich “content” is transferred, to the devising of processes and activities that enabledeep learning to take place. A crucial part of these activities involves the variousdialogues noted above, and therefore emphasises the importance of communicationbetween the various protagonists involved in the learning process. Web 2.0technologies are making it far easier for communities to coalesce around a range ofinterests, by facilitating anytime, anywhere, anyone communication.

Accordingly, we can now see more clearly the lineaments of the next generation oflearning models. In short this emerging model is likely to feature the following:

. the creation of a learning community;

. emphasis on process and activities, not content and assets;

. use of a wide range of existing and specially designed assets: the web,educational documentaries, open educational resources, iTunes U;

. focus on student-driven learning;

. use of Web 2.0 and mobile devices to support communication; and

. design of face-to-face residential schools for business networking.

4. Key issuesThese four different blended learning models cover a range of possibilities. But successand failure is determined at a fine level of operational detail. There is no silverbullet that guarantees universal success. The very dependency on communitiesnecessarily means that the configurations of elements in any particular blend need tobe sensitively adapted to the context and expectations of the learning participantsinvolved for success to be attained. Nevertheless, some general observations can bemade.

4.1 The role of technologyMuch of the current interest in blended learning has been stimulated by recentdevelopments in technology. But technology is not an end in itself: pedagogy mustlead. One must beware the “gee whiz” factor. It is very difficult to avoid being seducedby the excitement of new technology into thinking the technology itself holds thecomplete solution. In reality the solution lies in the minutiae about how the technologyis used[14]. Here it is worth reflecting on the false promise of video conferencing.Experience shows that the audio carries most of the meaning. When the audio signaldegrades communication becomes severely limited, whereas when the video elementdegrades useful information may still be gleaned. Another important general lesson isthat systematic training for effective use of any new technology is necessary to takeusers beyond their customary habits and “lock in” to routines shaped by the older

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technology. Thus the familiar “qwerty” typing layout has survived despite beingrelatively inefficient compared with improved alternatives such as the Dvorak layout.

4.2 Issues around face-to-face vs on-line blendsThe term “blended learning” is often taken just to refer to the balance betweenface-to-face and on-line interaction, though this is a very restricted perspective.Nevertheless, there remains considerable prejudice in favour of face-to-face interaction,and indeed, a certain minimum face-to-face interaction is required by many educationalregulatory regimes, such as Singapore’s. Moreover, we sometimes find a blurringof the distinction. For example, in Saudi Arabia, a video link is required if men areteaching women even if in the same building, and this is regarded as equivalentto face-to-face teaching. Here synchronicity is being considered as crucial ratherthan immediate personal contact.

Yet it is clear that face-to-face is not always naturally superior. The no significantdifference (NSD) web site carries a running summary of many studies (355 to date)comparing alternate modes of education delivery[15]. The title offers the conclusion:there is NSD. This surely must give pause for thought given that face-to-face pedagogyhas been around for at least several thousand years whereas on-line methods have onlybeen around for at most several decades and are still rapidly evolving. The situation isclearly a matter of “horses for courses”, which approach is to be preferred depends onthe task and the context – again the minutiae, how the experience is managed in detail.

For example, in comparing asynchronous text forums with face-to-face tutorials,forums have certain advantages. The text format tends to even out status and genderdifferences, while the asynchronous nature helps to level linguistic differences. Withoutthe need for immediate real-time replies, there is more opportunity for non-nativespeakers to understand what is going on and to work out how to respond and what towrite. By the same token, it can also enable deeper, more reflective contributions.Further, it is less easy for one individual to dominate the session, unlike in a face-to-face context, and thus helps to offset “hogging”, enabling more equal contributions.Finally, the full written record that ensues facilitates revision and note checking.

Another generic issue concerns the timing of respective episodes. It is often thoughtbest to start with a face-to-face event – “to give people the chance to get to know oneanother” – and then to follow with the on-line sessions. This is a common pattern inexecutive MBA programmes for instance. But this may not always be the bestapproach, as the initial experience of participants helps to set expectations and todefine an implicit learning contract. By holding a first meeting face-to-face, primacycan be accorded to that mode with the on-line relegated as supporting or secondary.The key here lies in carefully managing the “socialisation” into a particular mode sothat expectations are appropriately framed. If course participants are first introducedto one another via an on-line event, this can help to establish on-line as the primarymeans of communication. Moreover, when participants eventually do meet at asubsequent face-to-face event such as a residential school, the experience can bedramatic and memorable. These can be powerful consolidating educationalexperiences in their own right, which can be deployed to good effect with carefuldesign.

4.3 Operational requirementsVery different operational details are required for different modes of teaching andlearning. A robust technology infrastructure is required for on-line delivery as so much

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depends on the technology always working effectively. Technology mediated systemsare more “brittle” than human-mediated systems. A range of different protocols andprocesses is also required for nearly every aspect of the operation: How to establishthe identity of the students when on-line? How can assessment be validated? Whatstandards and what means for monitoring “attendance” are needed? Whatassumptions can be made about the students’ access to the web? What assumptionscan be made about the equipment they are using? All these operational details andmany other have to be resolved for effective and consistent on-line delivery.

4.4 Frameworks for design and comparisonThe shift from craft-based to factory production can have strong pedagogic benefits.The dependency on explicit design of the learning experience means that pedagogicissues have to be surfaced and clearly addressed. Articulated structuring of thelearning processes with specific attention given to the needs of the learner can onlyimprove the educational process from the default that often characterises conventionalface-to-face teaching. This default is the information transmission model, where thelecturer transfers what he or she considers to be the important content through talkingdirectly to the student. As has been remarked: “traditional lectures are frequentlymeans of transferring the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the student withoutpassing through the brains of either”.

The challenge is to capture such beneficial insights for both face-to-face and on-linemodes. In order to avoid the need for lecturers to be disproportionately absorbed intobecoming specialist educationists or essentially full-time teachers, thereby neglectingtheir other responsibilities to originate and critically assess the body of knowledge inwhich they are engaged, some means of providing structured guidance for coursecreation and design is useful. A starting point is the provision of frameworks forcomparing and analysing the activities that students are required to complete fordifferent courses. One key principle is to consider the student workload and itsdistribution over the various activities. It is surprising how often this is not done,resulting in the students’ reading workload becoming impossible in practice. Indeed,often such overload is regarded as a virility symbol by the lecturer, rather than thestudents’ real learning requirements being considered. Figure 1 provides an example ofone such framework.

4.5 Creating learning communitiesAs noted above, we are still at the relatively early stages of understanding how tocreate, manage and appropriately harness learning communities to good educationaleffect. At base, communities are bound together by common interests or practicesand integrated through rich communication about those interests. Informationand Communication Technologies (ICT) especially Web 2.0 are directed at facilitatingcommunication and can therefore be employed to support and strengthen learningcommunities. Moreover, ICT enables communities to persist more radically distributedover time and space, and this can enrich the learning experience in several ways.It enables flexibility, facilitates real time interventions and collates a variety ofgeographic and industrial perspectives, all of which demand careful design tomaximise their potential.

One of the particular challenges in harnessing learning communities is that theyreadily become autonomous entities driven by the common interests that gave thembirth. Such autonomy can develop in tension with the desired direction planned for the

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educational process. It is easy for the community to coalesce around criticism ofdeficiencies in the learning experience, or to pursue irrelevant avenues of discussion.Careful and sensitive management is required. Too directive an approach can inducenegative reactions, especially if a strong contrary dynamic is already underway. Strongeducational goals underpinned by assessment requirements can help align interestsand efforts.

In certain areas such as innovation studies, where sharing of the varied practicalexperience of the participants constitutes an important part of the learning, thetraditional asymmetry between teachers and learners is challenged. Even withbusiness management more generally, the range of experience brought into thelearning process by the participants leads to a symmetry with the teachers. Theteachers may offer the broader chronological and theoretical contexts, but this isbalanced by the students’ provision of more detailed and specific contemporaryexamples. Although this can be experienced as a threat to the traditional authorityof teaching, it also offers strong prospects for harnessing community dynamics forco-producing knowledge, and ensuring the direct relevancy and timeliness of what isbeing learned.

5. Conclusions: challenges and opportunitiesThere is no doubt that blended learning will become more prevalent. Evenconventional face-to-face campus-based teaching operations will use on-line activitiesas important supporting elements, and information and resources available over the

Experiential

Total hours

Percentage

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53 6 0 5 13 3 20

1Course guideWeek 1

0.25Podcast

0.2Web site

0.2Web site

1Course books

0.4Course guide

0.4Web site

1DVD

0.5Web site

10Forum

10My stuff

1.5Web site

6Course bookWeek 2

Notes 0 1.5

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Dis

trib

utio

n of

act

iviti

es

24 0 19 47 10 73

Assimilative Information Adaptive Communicative Productive Assessment

Source: Connole et al. (2009/2010)

Figure 1.Framework for design and

comparison – pedagogyprofile tool

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web will take over from printed library resources. However, serious barriers do facemore radical and disruptive blends. The challenges can be summarised under thefollowing headings: costs; intellectual property rights; custom and practice; andpreconceptions and perceptions.

5.1 CostsA distinct division of labour and developed infrastructure is required for the moreradical blends. It is not so much a matter of the absolute costs (which are in any casehigh) but of the lack of an appropriate budgetary base for the different operations.Most conventional campus-based business schools have cost structures organisedprimarily around the employment of academic staff, whereas at the OU a far greaterproportion is allocated to administrative personnel and a range of specialised supportservices from units elsewhere in the university. With the prospect of disaggregatingthe value chain and the advent of commercial providers addressing specific segments,increased competition in the sector may drive the development of different cost regimesand a more articulated distribution of activities between conventional and commercialproviders[16].

5.2 Intellectual property rightsWhile increasingly content is becoming available for free, the intellectual propertyinherent in the explicit design of courses is embodied in the teams of specialistsrequired to produce and maintain the learning processes. And where student input isformally harnessed, performing rights have to be addressed. Even in terms of courseproduction, in conventional operations, the ownership of courses lies with the soleacademic who convenes the course, whereas in full blown on-line operationsthe ownership is institutionalised and lies with the organisation not the individual.New forms of academic contract may therefore be required in order to move to the newinstitutional base for intellectual property.

5.3 Custom and practiceFor conventional university business schools, the prevailing custom and practiceamong academics and the overall mode of operation of the institution will notnecessarily fit the exigencies of the new blended approach. This goes beyond the costbarriers noted above, and includes the patterns of work organisation, the structures ofapproval and decision making and the governance arrangements, to touch on verybasic issues of academic autonomy and freedom. Conventional academics are usedto deploying their own judgement as professionals, and are not always ready to fit inwith a more industrial team-working approach in which they are required to complywith rigorously set external requirements. In these cases, new purpose developedinstitutions, many of them private, may be able to take the lead over traditionaloperations as they will be able to set the required modus vivendi from the outset.

5.4 Preconceptions and perceptionsAs well as barriers that are internal to the education providing institution, there is stillconsiderable resistance embedded in national regulatory systems, with a clearpreference accorded to conventional face-to-face operations, or to particular non-radicalforms of on-line delivery such as video broadcasting of lectures for instance. On-lineand distance learning is also frequently viewed (despite the NSD evidence cited above)as second choice to face-to-face operations. These perceptions are widely held among

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the general population of potential students, and also among employers of graduatesfrom such programmes. The OU in the UK, for instance, despite its undoubted success,is often dubbed “the University of the Second Chance”, and is implicitly seen as notquite comparable to more established and conventional operations. These prejudicesare if anything more embedded in other countries around the world. Overall suchperceptions could well restrict the speedy and extensive development of more radicalforms of blended learning.

5.5 OpportunitiesDespite the serious challenges and barriers, the opportunities for different forms ofblended learning are also very clear. These include the following.

The potential for using blended learning to improve the effectiveness of teachingand learning, on account of the surfacing of basic pedagogic principles necessitated bythe explicit design of the learning experience.

Extending the deployment of technology to enable greater flexibility in theprovision of education. This flexibility covers both time and geographic dimensionsand amounts to the provision of more convenient education for students who haveother severe constraints on their lives which limit how they can study, whether arisingfrom disability or working constraints.

Suitable configurations of blended learning can provide wider access to learningfor the learners, and to new markets for the providers.

Blended learning that includes practice-based elements offer great scope for farmore immediate and directed relevance of what is learnt.

The harnessing of learning communities through appropriate forms of blendedlearning provides scope for “co-production” of effective knowledge, by enablingpractitioners, academic analysts and observers to work together in forging a morepowerful, as well as theoretically and pragmatically integrated body of managementand business knowledge.

Finally, the design of appropriate blended learning solutions could provide scopefor the more systematic integration of diverse geographic, cultural, economic andpolitical perspectives, thereby giving a direct voice to different, and often overlooked,viewpoints through learning community processes, in contrast to the monolithicpromulgation of the current dominant Anglo-American paradigm for management.

Notes

1. See Christensen (1997) for the definitive account of disruptive innovations.

2. See, for instance Dutton and Loader (2002) or van Lieshout et al. (2001) for collections ofcritical analyses of the implications of information and communication technologies foreducation.

3. This paper develops the presentation given in a previous paper: Fleck (2008).

4. See http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/

5. See the papers presented in Open University of Sri Lanka (2010), for accounts of the situationin south east Asia, and Barsky et al. (2008) for accounts of the situation in Europe and theUSA, this latter specifically addressing business education.

6. Due to a change in terminology, “course teams” are now known as “module teams” in the OU.

7. See Edelson and Pittman (2008) and Smith and Bramble (2008) for further pertinentoverviews of the history and funding of distance learning in the USA.

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8. See Boud et al. (2001), Coghlan et al. (2004) and Schwartz et al. (2001) for details about some ofthese specific approaches to learning.

9. See details about how this may be done in Stephenson (2001) and Laurillard (1993).

10. See Garvin (2000) and DuFour and Eaker (1998); the latter exploring the developmentof learning communities in school rather than higher education.

11. See http://ocw.mit.edu/

12. See http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

13. See www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html

14. Stephenson (2001) provides several useful papers focused on such minutiae, while Laurillard(1993) provides one of the first and most robust theoretically well-founded frameworks forensuring that pedagogy leads the technology.

15. See www.nosignificantdifference.org/

16. See Newman et al. (2004) for a comprehensive examination of such pressures and risks forHigher Education more generally.

References

Barsky, N.P., Clements, M., Ravn, J. and Smith, K. (Eds) (2008), The Power of Technology forLearning (Advances in Business Education and Training 1), Springer, New York, NY.

Boud, D., Cohen, R. and Simpson, J. (Eds) (2001), Peer Learning in Higher Education: LearningFrom and With Each Other, Kogan Page, London.

Christensen, C.M. (1997), The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firmsto Fail, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, MA.

Coghlan, D., Dromgoole, T., Joynt, P. and Sorensen, P. (Eds) (2004), Managers Learning in Action,Routledge, London.

Connole, G., Fleck, J., Jones, M., Russell, A. and Weller, M. (2009/2010), Course Business ModelsProject, Open University, Milton Keynes.

DuFour, R. and Eaker, R. (1998), Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices forEnhancing Student Achievement, National Education Service, Bloomington, IN.

Dutton, W.H. and Loader, B.D. (Eds) (2002), Digital Academe: The New Media and Institutions ofHigher Education and Learning, Routledge, London.

Edelson, P.J. and Pittman, V.V. (2008), “Historical perspectives on distance learning in the UnitedStates”, in Bramble, W.J. and Panda, S. (Eds), Economics of Distance and Online Learning,Routledge, London, pp. 72-87.

Fleck, J. (2008), “Technology and the business school world”, Journal of ManagementDevelopment, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 415-24.

Garvin, D.A. (2000), Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work,Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Laurillard, D. (1993), Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective Use ofEducational Technology, Routledge, London.

Newman, F., Couturier, L. and Scurry, J. (2004), The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality,and the Risks of the Market, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Open University of Sri Lanka (2010), “OUSL 30th anniversary international research conference:the role of open and distance learning in the 21st century: challenges and possibilities”,conference proceedings, Colombo, 20-21 August.

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Schwartz, P., Mannin, S. and Webb, G. (Eds) (2001), Problem-Based Learning: Case Studies,Experience and Practice, Kogan Page, London.

Sensiper, S. (2002), “Making the case online: Harvard Business School multimedia”, in Dutton,W.H. and Loader, B.D. (Eds), Digital Academe: The New Media and Institutions of HigherEducation and Learning, Routledge, London, pp. 50-5.

Smith, M.J. and Bramble, W.J. (2008), “Funding of distance and online learning in the UnitedStates”, in Bramble, W.J. and Panda, S. (Eds), Economics of Distance and Online Learning,Routledge, London, pp. 88-106.

Stephenson, J. (Ed.) (2001), Teaching and Learning Online: Pedagogies for New Technologies,Kogan Page, London.

The Parthenon Group (2010), “Alternative distance education models”, Confidential Report forthe Open University, London, December.

van Lieshout, M., Egyedi, T.M. and Bijker, W.E. (Eds) (2001), Social Learning Technologies:The Introduction of Multimedia in Education, Ashgate, Aldershot.

Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Further reading

Newman, F., Couturier, L. and Scurry, J. (1994), The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality,and the Risks of the Market, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Corresponding authorJames Fleck can be contacted at: J.Fleck@open.ac.uk

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