business and sustainability models in open education: concepts and examples in 2012

The openED project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The content reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein. | openEd 2.0 505667-LLP-1-2009-1-PT-KA3-KA3MP

Business and Sustainability Models in Open Education

Concepts and Examples in 2012

June, 2012

Andreas Meiszner, PhD United Nations University | UNU-MERIT | CCG

The Netherlands

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Copyright Notice:

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Table of Content

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1

2 Open Education, OE Services and sustainability ....................................................... 2 3 A historic perspective: Education services and WTO GATS .................................... 3

4 Open Education service concepts and supportive market spaces .............................. 4 4.1 Open Education service concepts........................................................................ 4 4.2 Possible examples of Open Education services .................................................. 5 4.3 Supportive market spaces.................................................................................... 6

5 Sustainability Challenges: The Absence of an OE Service Infrastructure and perceived Lack of Business Models ................................................................................. 7

6 Comparison of openED concepts against further OE cases....................................... 8 6.1 Case 1: openED................................................................................................... 9 6.2 Case 2: openSE.................................................................................................. 12 6.3 Case 3 UNUOpen (UN University)................................................................... 15 6.4 Case 4: MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard) ............................................................. 18 6.5 Case 5: Coursera (Stanford) .............................................................................. 21 6.6 Case 6: Udacity (Stanford) ................................................................................ 24 6.7 Case 7: Saylor Foundation ................................................................................ 27 6.8 Case 8: OERu .................................................................................................... 30 6.9 Case 9: ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme ......................... 33 6.10 Case 10: Khan Academy................................................................................. 35 6.11 Case 11: UoP (University of the People) ........................................................ 38 6.12 Case 12: FTA (Free Technology Academy) ................................................... 41 6.13 Case 13: P2PU (Peer to Peer University)........................................................ 44

7 Reflections................................................................................................................ 47 7.1 Cost per student by OE component part............................................................ 47 7.2 Extension of regular course offerings (combined) vs OE as a parallel undertaking ................................................................................................................. 48 7.3 Currently existing OE business models & service concepts ............................. 49

Annex - List of section 6 secondary sources .................................................................. 51

References ...................................................................................................................... 52

List of Figures

Figure 1 OE value chain for the learning industry (Source: ELIG, 2011) ....................... 5

Figure 2 Cost per student by OE component part; variable, fixed and cost neutral....... 47

1

1 Introduction There are a number of pathways and measures to allow for the sustainability of Open

Education (OE) and they do depend on the respective OE scenarios. Donations,

advertisements, or commission on sales are all viable and well-established means of

revenue generation, and they are applied successfully within and outside of the

education sector. In addition to this OE further potentially allows for cost-sharing and

an added value for money, and for the provision of OE services (Meiszner, 2011). Cost-

sharing means to optimize the use of the resources at hand and might be for example

achieved through sharing the cost for the production and maintenance of open

educational environments, related open educational resources or through shared online

learner support. The openED project shows as a example how such a sharing might be

realized in practice and how educational institutions can co-produce and co-deliver a

course, including how support provision and course facilitation can be equally

distributed amongst the participating educational institutions. OE further can provide an

added value to traditional educational offerings and therefore could allow for a higher

value for the same cost involved, or in the best-case even cost savings (Meiszner, 2011).

Another possible mean to allow for sustainability of OE, and at a scalable rate, is seen

to lay in the development and provision of OE services and as will be the focus of this

report. In the following this report will provide a brief theoretic introduction into the

thematic field of OE services, to then compare OE concepts, which have been

developed and partially also tested within the openED project, against other currently

emerging OE cases from across the globe. As will be shown within the final reflective

section of the report, there are a number of common characteristics within all of such

attempts. But perhaps more importantly from a sustainability perspective; all of such

cases do indicate that OE services are still at its very beginning and that they appear to

be at this point in time often limited to the basic and most obvious OE service concepts,

namely an individual learner assessment and certification against fees. As will be

discussed within this report, OE services do are however not limited to learner

assessment and certification against fees. The possible OE value chain that the

unbundling of the traditional formal education package and the institutional detachment

of education in theory do withhold is still to be explored.

2

2 Open Education, OE Services and sustainability Over the past years the traditional formal education domain has been subject to a

process of opening up resulting in an ever-blurring border between the formal and the

informal and allowing traditional formal education to take advantage of the

opportunities that participatory Web 2.0 provides (Meiszner, 2010, Weller & Meiszner

2008). Such blurring of borders can be seen both in the use of informal approaches

within formal education and release of formal content for less formal use.

Over the past years the traditional formal education domain has also started to take more

and more advantage of the practicing and authentic learning opportunities that Web 2.0

based real-life context environments provide (Meiszner, 2010). This development bears

the potential to systematically bring together traditional formal higher education offers

and theoretic subjects, and from across higher education institutions, with practicing and

authentic learning opportunities within real-life context environments that Web 2.0

provides. Such developments indicate an immense potential to better support learners,

but they also change the context of what is to be understood as traditional formal higher

education, and what current or future technologies might need to support. At present

there is for example a clear absence of concepts and technical solutions that would

allow for education design and provision across technologies and detached from a

single education provider. Even in the case of supportive licensing for underlying open

educational resources, and the access opportunity to educational communities, the

disconnection of the respective technical solutions and environments has turned out so

far to be a serious challenge. As a matter of fact current technological solutions are

typically not designed or intended to allow for education across higher education

institutions, nor to allow all type of learners to learn at any institution of their choice,

nor to engage with students from such institutions, nor to obtain support from such

institutions. Commercial approaches like Amazon for the retail sector or Sourceforge

for software developer community do provide some insights on how Open Education

Ecosystems might be perceived. Amazon and Sourceforge both offer examples that

bring together competing commercial enterprises within their environments, which in

the traditional formal higher education domain do not exist. Thus there is the need to

advance knowledge in such new forms of collaboration in the education sector and to

contribute towards specifications that emerging Open Education Ecosystems would

need to meet.

3

Based upon those challenges and opportunities that OE potentially withholds, the EU

LLP funded openED project has been developing and testing a number of new and

service based OE concepts that potentially would allow OE to become sustainable in the

future. An underlying assumption of such concepts has been that the detachment of

education from a single education institution also would go along with an unbundling of

the typically bundled education package. This is to say that within the traditional formal

education system a given education institution typically would be the single education

provider to their learner population. This starts from initial admission and access to

physical or virtual infrastructures, the education itself in form of access opportunities to

learning resources, classes, tutorials and so forth, followed by subsequent assessment

and evaluations of learners, and commonly ending with recognition and formal

credentials of learning outcomes. However, within an OE context this situation might be

very different since traditional formal education offers can be provided from across

higher education institutions, and under involvement of authentic real-life context

environments that the Web 2.0 provides. From a sustainability perspective this allows

for the unbundling of the traditional education package and to realize cost-savings and

an optimized use of resources, a higher value for money, or for the provision of OE

services to the learner itself, or also to education provider. In the following such new

and service based OE concepts will be further discussed.

3 A historic perspective: Education services and WTO GATS The understanding of education as a service is not a novelty itself, and as exemplified

for example within the World Trade Organization’s ‘General Agreement on Trade in

Services’ as following shown.

The World Trade Organization’s ‘General Agreement on Trade in Services’ (GATS)

entered into force in 1995. One of the components of this agreement, and a perhaps

highly controversial one, has been on ‘Education Services’. The European Students’

Union (ESU, nd) has been arguing for example that education is a public good and that

it should be made available to society at large, but that it is not a good to be consumed

by those only that are privileged as they can afford to pay for it. Apart from those

certainly well justified debates, what the GATS show is that education has been

considered as being a service for already more than one decade. The rise of the ICT and

the Web are therefore perhaps less a cause for education services, but an enabler to

provide those more efficiently and across borders. Very much in line with the GATS

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notion of education as a service one further can observe a steady rise in the education

service market at which private market actors offer those components of education that

can be digitized or delivered at a distance or through networked environments. In 2007

CNET (2007), a popular online news service, noted that education would be the next

big growth market and in April 2011 the FTSE1 100 publishing and education group

Pearson (US) acquired New York based Schoolnet for $230 million in cash. Schoolnet

is a fast-growing education technology company that aligns assessment, curriculum and

other services to help individualize instruction and improve teacher effectiveness. The

undertakings of such private market actors are well aligned with the recommendations

of the UNESCO Report “Towards Knowledge Societies” (2005) that suggest that “the

pillars on which genuine knowledge societies can be built consist of a better valuation

of existing forms of knowledge to narrow the knowledge divide; a more participatory

approach to access to knowledge; and a better integration of knowledge policies” (2005,

p.188). Though Pearson, as a private for profit undertaking, might not be guided by the

objective of building up knowledge societies, the case of Schoolnet provides some

evidence for the validity of the UNESCO report recommendations with regards to

synergies, participatory approaches and consistent policies. The information above

illustrates that education services are not immature, but a well-established sector in

many parts of our education systems. The recent ‘opening up’ of the higher education

sector therefore provides perhaps just the necessary stepping-stone to enable the

provision of OE services.

4 Open Education service concepts and supportive market spaces

4.1 Open Education service concepts The unbundling and institutional detachment of the traditional formal education

package provides the opportunity to develop services around the respective education

component parts. Component parts of the traditional formal education package that have

been identified alongside the openED project included ‘Open Content’, ‘Open Degrees’,

‘Open Assessment’, ‘Open Learning’, ‘Open Tutoring’, ‘Open Technology’, and ‘Open

Communities’. Each of such component parts allows for the development and provision

of services that might be provided to the learner itself, but also to education provider.

1 FTSE: an independent company jointly owned by The Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange.

5

OE services might be described as an ‘on-demand’ concept at which services are

provided around freely available educational offers, such as courses and programmes,

and perhaps also with free basic support provision. OE services therefore might be close

to a ‘Freemium business model’ at which basic products or services are available free of

charge, while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related

products and services. OE services are nonetheless not limited to a ‘Freemium business

model’ and the ultimate business model will also depend on the respective national

education systems and the funding models in place.

As such OE services are a possibly financial viable mean to allow for the sustainability

of OE. As such OE services are also offering a business opportunity for private market

actors and as depicted within Figure 1.

Figure 1 OE value chain for the learning industry (Source: ELIG, 2011)

4.2 Possible examples of Open Education services OE services might be provided as well to learners as to education providers. Examples

of educational services for learners could include formal assessment, certification, local

in-class support, study groups, online tutoring, or mentored internships. Services for

education providers might include training, course and program development, (cloud)

6

hosting and maintenance, online assessment and certification systems, online spaces to

provide tutoring, billing systems, physical ID verification and assessment control.

The offering of such services thus potentially would allow (higher) education

institutions and third party education providers to generate revenues and as such to

allow for sustainability.

4.3 Supportive market spaces OE Service concepts are not entirely unrelated to those ones that are already offered

within the traditional formal education system. Moreover, OE service concepts would

provide clear incentives to education provider such as higher education institutions to

deliver course, programs or services through supportive OE market spaces. Altogether

such OE market spaces could also benefit other sustainability components, such as cost-

sharing through co-authored production of courses, programs and other types of

resources, numerous localization opportunities, or joint support provision. To provide

such services would nonetheless require the establishment of supportive market space

infrastructures that then would allow for the offering of such services from across

education institutions and real-life context environments that the Web 2.0 provides. The

unbundling of the traditional education package could then allow education providers as

well as learners to customize education. Learners could decide the preferred mode of

study, be it the traditional one, be it a mix of traditional and peer studying with service

subscriptions from one or more providers, or be it learning for free. With this, such an

education market space would follow common market principles in which supply and

demand determine the price, and in which high quality education could potentially be

provided at local economic rates. The openED project has been conceptualizing and

testing such a market space approach and the results suggest that the joint offer of

education from across institutions and competition at a service level might not be a

conflict in itself. A conflict potential nonetheless, and as experienced within the

openED case, might lay within the incompatibility of national legal frameworks that are

at current in place with OE service and market space concepts. The OERu presented

within section 6 and that is currently under development is pursuing a similar approach,

by bundling strength across the participating higher education institutions for

curriculum design, the joint use of supportive virtual infrastructures (e.g. for learner

support), and by allowing participating education institutions to provide services to their

local and also virtual distributed learner population. Given that the OERu is still at its

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very beginning it is however not known if national legal frameworks that are at current

in place are of an equal challenge to be overcome as experienced within the openED

case.

5 Sustainability Challenges: The Absence of an OE Service Infrastructure and perceived Lack of Business Models

At this point in time the concept of Open Education, as well as of Open Education

Services, is still in its infancy and there is the absence of well-established market

principles and concepts. The European Learning Industry Group (ELIG), as an openED

project partner, has been carrying out a number of stakeholder consultations. The

findings of such consultations (ELIG, 2011) highlighted in this regard that looking at

similar market approaches, notably the Open Source Software one, shows that such new

models are initially often confined to the specialist and fringe development

communities. In this Open Source Software case commercial software companies long

looked on Open Source Software, but did not embrace the concept and failed to see how

Open Source Software could support their highly commercialised world. Twenty years

on, Open Source Software is routinely behind many consumer and industrial products,

such as satellite boxes, smart phones, PCs, etc.

ELIG has further been carrying out a survey across the breadth of the learning industry

(ELIG, 2011) that shows that there are clear indications that the commercial learning

industry has not yet fully engaged with Open Education (OE). The commercial

hesitation to adopt OE is in large part due to a perceived lack of associated new

business models. Despite this perceived lack of associated new business models,

education services are nonetheless already well established for more then a decade as

has been detailed within section 3. What might be thus indeed a novelty is to provide

services within an OE setting that is characterized by institutional detachment, the

unbundling of the traditionally bundled education package into its component parts, and

the larger number of stakeholders that might act as education provider. This certainly

does require a certain infrastructure to support the offering of such services and as has

been discussed within section 4. The comparison of currently existing OE case that is

provided within the following section suggest however that such supportive

infrastructure does not exist at this point in time.

8

6 Comparison of openED concepts against further OE cases The openED course has been implementing and testing a OE service infrastructure

aimed at enabling third party education providers to offer services to the course

participants, be it for free or against fee. This service infrastructure had been

implemented alongside the openED piloting phase and it has been considering a limited

number of services such as in-class support, virtual tutoring, and marked assessment

and certification. During the openED piloting phase a number of OE service providers

have been offering services for the course, though at this point in time remains unclear

to which degree those services have been actually used and whether or not the

implemented service infrastructure and approach does workout as envisioned and could

be ultimately taken further from a research project level into a more formal and

mainstream education context.

Given that OE and OE services are still at a relatively early stage the openED concept

can also not be compared against well-established and mature OE cases, which do not

exist at this point in time. However, and to allow for a better understanding on the

potential applicability of the openED concepts and its service infrastructure this section

will compare a number of currently emergent similar OE initiatives. The purpose of this

comparison is thus to gain a better understanding on the state of the art of OE concepts

and service approaches and to identify similarities and deviations.

The following provided information has been collected via desktop research within the

investigated OE case websites or via third party sources as detailed within the Annex

‘a’.

9

6.1 Case 1: openED Characteristics / Cases openED Maturity Research Country Europe Funding Grant (EU, EACEA). Stakeholder Higher Education Institutions,

Adult Education Provider, Web based communities and social spaces.

Formal / Non-formal education approach

Formal and non-formal.

Traditional, Parallel or Combined approach (e.g. one course many provider / many provision modes)

Combined approach of traditional and open learning. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.

Education materials Use of educational materials from participating education provider. Use of educational material now available for free on the internet. Collaborative development of curriculum and course design.

Localizations / Versioning

Yes, but no supportive technology in place

Modularity Yes, course broken down in modules. Bundling of education package

Unbundled, broken down in component parts (course design, lectures, support, assessment, certification, etc.).

Institutional attachment Detached from single institution.

Training of Trainers Programme

Yes, short training course.

Technology Available and adapted OSS & web based technologies.

10

Licenses (Content & technologies)

Open licenses.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. Problem, inquiry, collaborative based learning.

Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

Online chat (IRC) sessions organized by the course team from participating education institutions. Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education institutions.

(Re-)Use/Integration of (A) learning outcomes (assignments, tests, etc.) and/or (B) internship reports

Directory for/with learner assignments, including grading and evaluations.

Use/Integration of (A) real life learning environments and/or (B) internships

Yes, such as Scribd, Slideshare, etc.

Portability of learning and outcomes

No.

Track of learning pathways within internal and external learning environments

No.

Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted assignments. Both, peer-assessment and assessment via OE service provider (fees might apply).

Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Yes, automated Self-Print certificate or formal recognition via OE service provider (fees might apply).

11

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating education institutions and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms. System for rating and evaluation of the quality of third party OE service provider.

Service Concepts & Business Models

Cost-sharing, higher value for money and OE services to learners such as: - Formal assessment - Certification - Local in-class support - Study groups - Online tutoring.

Other URLs www.open-ed.eu

12

6.2 Case 2: openSE Characteristics / Cases openSE Maturity Research Country Europe Funding Grant (EU, EACEA). Stakeholder Higher Education Institutions,

Adult Education Provider, Web based communities and social spaces, including OSS developer communities (via internships).


Non-formal practice based approach focusing on authentic and real life learning.


Combined approach of traditional and open learning.

Education materials Use of educational materials from participating education provider. Use of educational material now available for free on the internet. Use of educational material from real-life learning environments (OSS developer communities). Collaborative development of curriculum and course design.


Yes, but no supportive technology in place

Modularity Yes, materials are made available by tasks and/or by learning objectives. Bundling of education package

Unbundled, focused on non-formal component parts (internships, p2p knowledge exchange, shared 2nd level support etc.).


13


Yes, short training course.

Technology Available and adapted OSS & web based technologies. Licenses (Content & technologies)

Open licenses, but support of closed licensed third party offers.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. Problem, inquiry, collaborative and project based learning.


Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education institutions. Access to support system of embedded authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).


Directory for/with learner internship project reports, including grading and evaluations. Directory for/with learner assignments, including grading and evaluations. Directory with learning resources from authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).


Use/Integration of authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities) as part of a virtual internship.


Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) that allows for single sign on across learning spaces and leveraging of all types of data across such spaces (3).



Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted internship reports. Both, peer-assessment and assessment via OE service provider (fees might apply).

14


Yes, automated Self-Print certificate.

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating education institutions and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms.


Cost-sharing and higher value for money through bundling of 2nd level and peer support and learner generated contents.

Other URLs www.openSE.net

15

6.3 Case 3 UNUOpen (UN University) Characteristics / Cases UNUOpen (UN University) Maturity Concept Country Global Funding Conceptual phase only. Stakeholder Higher Education Institutions,

Adult Education Provider, Web based communities and social spaces, public and private sector entities (via internship programme).


Formal traditional course based education approach, non-formal practice based approach focusing on authentic and real life learning.


Combined approach of traditional and open learning. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.

Education materials Use of educational materials from participating education provider. Use of educational material now available for free on the internet. Collaborative development of curriculum and course design.


Yes, via supportive technologies (analogue to Amazon / Sourceforge concepts).

Modularity Yes, to support re-bundling and education provision in multi contexts, across institutions and collaborative/jointly.

Bundling of education package

Unbundled, broken down in component parts (development, lectures, support, assessment, certification, internships, p2p knowledge exchange, shared 2nd level support, etc.).


16


Yes, via partnership & training programme.

Technology Two core technologies. (A) Higher level technological OE system framework analogue to Amazon & Sourceforge concept that integrates available third party technologies (e.g. common OSS & proprietary LMS systems, Content repositories, web based technologies, etc.) and allows for multi-technology support. (B) Portable Education Portfolios.


Open licenses, but support of closed licensed third party offers.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. Problem, inquiry, collaborative and project based learning.


Online lectures or support chat (IRC) sessions organized by the course team from participating education institutions. Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education institutions. Remote participation opportunities at classroom based lectures for online learners within the courses of participating education institutions. Access to support system of embedded authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).


Directories for/with learner assignments and internship project reports, including their grading and evaluations. Directory with learning resources from authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).


Yes, flexible embedment options to integrate authentic real-live environments into courses or programmes.



17


Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) and through OE software system framework (4).

Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted assignments and internship reports. Both, peer-assessment and assessment via OE service provider (fees might apply).


Yes, automated Self-Print certificate based on Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS information and formal recognition via OE service provider (fees might apply).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating education institutions and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms. System for rating and evaluation of the quality of third party OE service provider.


Cost-sharing and higher value for money through bundling of 2nd level and peer support and learner generated contents. Traditional funding and sustainability models for traditional course & program delivery. OE services to learners and to third party OE service provider via marketplace concept, incl. commission on sales and shared revenues: Learner perspective: - Formal assessment - Certification - Local in-class support - Study groups - Online tutoring Provider perspective: ! Commission on service fees generated through UNU Open ! Course & Programme hosting & update services.

Other URLs n/a

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6.4 Case 4: MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard) Characteristics / Cases MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard) Maturity Under development Country USA Funding Own funding ($60 million). Stakeholder Transformational partnership of MIT and Harvard in online education to collaborate to enhance campus-based

teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners (1).


Formal traditional course based education approach.


Parallel. Enriching traditional on-campus experience while offering high level online education to learners around the world (1).

Education materials Use of educational materials from MIT and Harvard. Localizations / Versioning

No.


Traditional version bundled; Open version bundled.

Institutional attachment Attached to single education institution.


No.

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Technology Online learning platform that [envisioned]: • organizes and presents course material to enable students to learn worldwide • features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor communication • allows for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allows students who demonstrate their mastery of subjects to earn certificates awarded by MITx • operates on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational institutions, such as universities and K-12 school systems.


Open and closed licenses.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses (1). Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

Video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate automated feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, and student paced learning.


Homework can be published at the course wiki.


No


No


No

20

Assessment Yes, automated and optional (against fees) personalized. Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

No course credit, degree or certificate from the universities involved. Instead, successful students can hope for a signed letter of completion from their well-known instructor or a certificate from the organization (e.g. MITx brand label) (1). Non-formal recognition possible via badges.



Yes, via MITx /EdX brand name, and assessment/credentials against fees.

Other The edX platform will enable the study of which teaching methods and tools are most successful. The findings of this research will be used to inform how faculty use technology in their teaching, which will enhance the experience for students on campus and for the millions expected to take advantage of these new online offerings.

URLs http://www.edxonline.org

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6.5 Case 5: Coursera (Stanford) Characteristics / Cases Coursera (Stanford) Maturity Under development Country USA Funding Funding ($16 million) from Doerr & Sandell Stakeholder For profit start-up founded by two Stanford University computer science professors, Coursera is partnering with

that school, as well as Princeton University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania to offer classes in disciplines including computer science, medicine, literature and history.




Parallel, HEI university-level education.

Education materials Lecture videos, which are broken into small chunks, and integrated quiz questions.


No


Open version bundled.

Institutional attachment Attached to participating education institutions.


No

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Technology Coursera’s learning management service (LMS) platform can be used internally by universities to revamp their online course programs. The plan is to shake up how most college classes are typically run — with long, boring lectures. Ng and Koller believe that short online video lectures and interactive assignments, provided with Coursera’s LMS, will open up more time in classrooms for discussions, case studies, and more riveting presentations that will keep students engaged (9).


All content or other materials available on the Sites, including but not limited to code, images, text, layouts, arrangements, displays, illustrations, audio and video clips, HTML files and other content are the property of Coursera and/or its affiliates or licensors and are protected by copyright, patent and/or other proprietary intellectual property rights under the United States and foreign laws.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

There is a Q&A forum in which students rank questions and answers, so that the most important questions and the best answers bubble to the top. Teaching staff will monitor these forums, so that important questions not answered by other students can be addressed. Where essays are required, especially in the humanities and social sciences, the system relies on the students themselves to grade their fellow students’ work, in effect turning them into teaching assistants.


No, though in principle possible since assignments are systematically collected and stored (including their evaluations).


No

Portability of learning No

23

and outcomes


No

Assessment Peer-evaluation. To participate in peer evaluation one must first submit an assignment, and to receive credit for completing an assignment one must also complete the peer evaluation. That means that an assignment will be reviewed by about five other people.


Statement of Accomplishment that one earns based on the work submitted



Business Model still under development. One of their main backers, the venture capitalist John Doerr, a Kleiner investment partner, said via e-mail that he saw a clear business model: “Yes. Even with free courses. From a community of millions of learners some should ‘opt in’ for valuable, premium services. Those revenues should fund investment in tools, technology and royalties to faculty and universities.” (6).

Other URLs http://www.coursera.org

24

6.6 Case 6: Udacity (Stanford) Characteristics / Cases Udacity (Stanford) Maturity Under development Country USA Funding Funding ($5 million (8)) from Charles River Ventures (5) and corporate partnership with Pearson VUE (7).

Stakeholder For profit start-up founded by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online.




Parallel, non HEI university-level education.

Education materials Use of educational materials from participating education provider. Use of educational material now available for free on the internet.


No


Open version bundled.



No

Technology Online learning platform to use the economics of the Internet to connect some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students all over the world.

25


Freely available materials, unclear licensing.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

Video lessons. Forum (Q&A) based support provided by peers and as required by the course team. Recorded answers by the course team of selected questions. Life office hours with course team.


No


No


No


No

Assessment Yes, automated. Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Badges to recognise actions that benefit the community. For initial AI course: Students get a letter with their grade and class rank, signed by the professors in the name of the professor (5).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating educators.

26


Business Model still under development. One possibility would be to double as a recruiting agency for tech companies and engineering firms, says Stavens. Rather than granting credentials that students might use to impress employers, Udacity could cut to the chase by headhunting within its student body on behalf of companies, matching students to jobs and collecting recruiting fees (5).

Other URLs http://www.udacity.com

27

6.7 Case 7: Saylor Foundation Characteristics / Cases Saylor Foundation Maturity Under development Country USA Funding Saylor Foundation funding and donations. Stakeholder Faculty and peer-review teams from various higher education institutions to package primarily open license

educational materials into degree level programs. Saylor is collaborating with both p2pu and the University of the People to create and share courses, and some of Saylor's math courses come from the Khan Academy. Thus there seems to be a community working with some cooperation towards similar goals (1).




Parallel, HEI college level education.

Education materials Use of educational material now available for free on the internet. They repackage this material into majors, and incorporate it into their individual educational approaches (1).


No


Not applicable as content only

Institutional attachment Not applicable as content only

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Not applicable as content only

Technology Online content repository Licenses (Content & technologies)

Except where otherwise noted, content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Pedagogy Rather rudimentary in terms of use of pedagogy and technology compared to what one finds in well funded online programs (1).


Any person can sign up for a course at any time, and it does not appear that there is any peer learning involved at present (1).


No


No


No


No

Assessment No Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

It is not clear whether Saylor intends to offer a degree to students who succeed in passing the prescribed courses (1).

29

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating educators. Service Concepts & Business Models

Donations and grants

Other URLs http://www.saylor.org

30

6.8 Case 8: OERu Characteristics / Cases OERu Maturity Under development Country New Zealand (Global) Funding Hewlett Foundation funding and donations. Stakeholder The OER university is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways

for OER learners to gain formal academic credit. Current network HEIs are University of Southern Queensland (AU), Otago Polytechnic (NZ), Athabasca University (CA), Gujarat Open University (IN), Empire State College (US), Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NZ), NorthTec (NZ), Open Polytechnic (NZ), Southern New Hampshire University (US), Thompson Rivers University (CA), University of Canterbury (NZ), University of South Africa (SA), University of Wollongong (NZ), Thomas Edison State College (US), University of the South Pacific (FJ).




Parallel, HEI university-level education with the option of obtaining credentials by participating HEIs.

Education materials Courseware from network HEIs and other open-education material found on the Internet.


Unclear, still under discussion.

Modularity Yes Bundling of education package

Unbundled. Local training provider decide about the type of services offered to their learning population.

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Yes, via wiki based guidelines and/or workshops.

Technology Open Source licensed core technologies (notable MediaWiki), which needs to be integrated with the LMS systems of partnering HEIs (currently Blackboard, Moodle, myUnisa, Sakai). At current OERu is less focusing on technology development, which appears to take on an equal importance within the wider OERu framework amongst e.g. content, pedagogy, support, assessment, certification, etc.


Open licenses for OERu.

Pedagogy Currently under development. Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

Currently under development. Intended use of volunteering system, including peer to peer support currently under test and based on Askbot Q&A forum software.


Currently under development and therefore unclear, though open assessment is named and thus could potentially allow for re-use / integration of learning outcomes.


At current apparently not foreseen.


Currently under development and therefore unclear; but in principle would need to be available to allow for assessment and credentials via partner HEIs.

32


At current apparently not foreseen.

Assessment Yes, peer assessment as well as personal assessment via partner HEIs. Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Yes, via partner HEIs

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating HEIs. Service Concepts & Business Models

Yes, assessment and certification against fees are foreseen.

Other URLs http://wikieducator.org/OER_university

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6.9 Case 9: ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme Characteristics / Cases ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme Maturity Production Country Africa / Germany Funding Capacity building grant via German GIZ programme. Stakeholder Volunteers from different backgrounds, incl. HEI and professional education educators




Parallel, professional level education. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.

Education materials The educational programme of ict@innovation is a collaborative production and exploitation process based on open licensed course materials.


Yes, with the possibility of feeding back localized versions into the ict@innovation portal.


Unbundled. Local training provider decide about the type of services offered to their learning population.



Yes, via training programme

Technology Open Source licensed LMS systems based on Drupal and Dokeos. Licenses (Content & technologies)

Open licenses.

Pedagogy Case based learning.

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Self and peer support for online learning. Tutor based support for local learning population (either in-class or online).


Partially via potential availability of past assignments / tests within the LMS system.


Yes, via associated mentored internship programme.


No


No

Assessment Within the responsibility of local education provider. Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Within the responsibility of local education provider.

Quality Assurance For course delivery within the responsibility of local education provider. For programme design within the responsibility of participating educators.


For the overall ict@innovation programme: Volunteering and added value / cost sharing amongst volunteers. For the individual volunteer / local training provider: Fees for in-class support, assessment, certification, etc.

Other URLs http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/

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6.10 Case 10: Khan Academy Characteristics / Cases Khan Academy Maturity Production (Advanced) Country USA Funding Donation from Ann Doerr, large grants from Google ($2 million) and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation ($1.5

million). Stakeholder The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-

class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult.


Topic based education approach.


Combined approach of traditional and open learning. Traditional education, notably teachers, can make use of the system and have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the Khan Academy.

Education materials Over 2700 10-20 minute long videos on a huge number of K-16 subjects. Most videos are made by the founder Salman Khan, but some come from other sources (1).


Yes, e.g. translation to other languages. Plan to allow teachers around the globe to use the Knowledge Map to build their own courses and also have access to the in-depth analytic tools Khan Academy is providing at the back-end, but the content must be put up to Khan Academy’s non-commercial public domain (10).


Unbundled, since only some component parts are offered (e.g. Full courses or programmes are not supported).

36



Yes, sort of including guidance to the teacher through real-time metrics and reporting on student performance.

Technology Open Source licensed LMS system. Licenses (Content & technologies)

Open licenses.

Pedagogy Individualizing learning by replacing one-size-fits-all lectures with self-paced learning. Taking a mastery-based approach to learning critical knowledge and skills. Creating collaborative learning environments with students solving problems together and tutoring one another. Using focused coaching by the teacher to address students' individual needs.


Student can access a number of tools that help to visualize progress and the growing knowledge map. Similarly, teachers who use Khan material can get class statistics (1). Support is available e.g. via Q&A forums, custom self-paced learning tools, or a custom profile, points, and badges to measure progress.


No


No


No

37


Yes, via portfolio system.

Assessment Automated tests for open learning. Teachers can access all of their students' data to support their assessments by summary of class performance as a whole or diving into a particular student's profile.


Badges and points for open learning.

Quality Assurance Responsibility of KA. Service Concepts & Business Models


Other Teachers and coaches can access all of their students' data. You can get a summary of class performance as a whole or dive into a particular student's profile to figure out exactly which topics are problematic. The class profile lets coaches glance at their dashboard and quickly figure out how to best spend their time teaching. Khan Academy empowers teachers by giving them access to the data they should've had for years.

URLs http://www.khanacademy.org

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6.11 Case 11: UoP (University of the People) Characteristics / Cases UoP (University of the People) Maturity Production (Advanced) Country USA Funding $1 million seed funding through founder. Stakeholder University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s tuition-free, non-profit, online academic institution dedicated to

opening access to higher education globally. Based on the principles of e-learning and peer-to-peer learning, coupled with open-source technology and Open Educational Resources, UoPeople is designed to provide access to undergraduate degree programs for qualified individuals, despite financial, geographic or societal constraints. UoPeople has partnered with Yale University for research, New York University to accept students and Hewlett-Packard for internships.




Parallel, HEI university-level education.

Education materials Basic course material is assembled from open educational materials, some from the Open Courseware Consortium (1). Course designers who modify and enhance the materials. An in house group develops assessment standards for the degrees (1).


No

Modularity Information not available. Bundling of education package

Bundled

39

Institutional attachment Attached to single institution, though partnership developments under preparation (e.g. NYU, US).


Apparently for volunteering academics.

Technology Online learning platform (access to registered students only). Licenses (Content & technologies)

Unclear

Pedagogy To look at a course one apparently needs to matriculate in order to do so (1). Peer to peer learning is considered core to the approach, so students in a course are divided into groups of 20-30 that work together online on weekly assignments. Each group has an instructor who facilitates the peer to peer process by e.g. assuring that it is working towards correct outcomes, and suggesting other sources of information as needed (1).


UoPeople operates on a limited budget without sacrificing the quality of education by employing collaborative and open-source e-learning. UoPeople embraces peer-to-peer and collaborative learning to provide university-level programs to a global student body. Within the online study communities, students share resources, exchange ideas, discuss weekly topics, submit assignments and take exams.


Unclear


Partnered with Hewlett-Packard for internships.


Unclear

40


Unclear

Assessment Personalized assessment. Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Students who successfully complete the degree requirements are awarded a bachelor's degree by the University of the People. The University is not accredited, but the website says that it is seeking accreditation at this time (1).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of UoP and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms.


UoPeople offers tuition-free education, and presently charges only a nominal Application Processing Fee of between $10-$50 that is adjusted on sliding scale based on the economic situation in each applicant’s country or place of residence. In the future, UoPeople plans to implement Exam Processing Fees of between $10-$100 that will operate on the same sliding scaled as the Application Processing Fee.

Other URLs http://www.uopeople.org/

41

6.12 Case 12: FTA (Free Technology Academy) Characteristics / Cases FTA (Free Technology Academy) Maturity Production (Advanced) Country Europe Funding Grant (EU, EACEA); Revenues; Donations Stakeholder The Free Technology Academy is hosted by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI). The founding partners are the

FKI and two European universities: the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) and the Open Universiteit of the Netherlands. The Associate Partner Network adds to the founding base with a widespread network of organisations that share a common interest in offering courses in the area of Free Technology.




Parallel, HEI university-level education with the option of transferring to full degree programmes of participating HEIs.

Education materials The educational programme of the Free Technology Academy is a collaborative production and exploitation process based on open licensed course materials.


No


Bundled



Yes

42

Technology The software used in the FTA virtual campus is Free Software and is built upon an Open Standards framework.


Open licenses.

Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. A course methodology based on group debates, individual and group assignments and peer and tutor feedback.


Online tutored sessions organized by the course team from participating education institutions, peer learning/support


No


No


Partially, via transfer of credits to participating HEIs.


No

Assessment Tutor based assessment Degrees / Credentialing / Recognition

Certificate that is recognized by participating HEIs.


43


Learners interested in a certain topic form a group of peers willing to take part in a self-organised course and commit to contribute an agreed tuition fee to cover the course's costs. Discounts can be obtained by the group when reaching a certain number of participants.

Other URLs http://ftacademy.org/

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6.13 Case 13: P2PU (Peer to Peer University) Characteristics / Cases P2PU (Peer to Peer University) Maturity Production (Advanced) Country USA (Global) Funding Grants from various donors Stakeholder Volunteers from different backgrounds, incl. HEI educators. At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular

topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback. The Peer 2 Peer University is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality low-cost education opportunities.


Non-formal, topic based education approach.


Parallel. p2pu as an institution equivalent that provides a space for asynchronous discussions with other students (2). One course, one environment, potentially many provider.

Education materials Courseware from leading universities and other open-education material found on the Internet. Volunteers, who are expected to have some background in the subjects, submit ideas for courses, create syllabi of open courseware, and organize group study (2).


No

Modularity Yes, topic focus. Bundling of education package

Relatively seen unbundled since a variety of providers offer different components of the education package.

45



Not dedicated, but number of guidance available to providers/volunteers.

Technology Online learning environment by thematic area. Licenses (Content & technologies)

Open licenses.

Pedagogy Varies by offer. Learning, Tutoring, Support and Communities

Volunteer teachers guide students working in groups through open courseware (2).


Varies by offer.


Varies by offer.


Potentially via Mozilla Open Badges Backpack.


Potentially via Mozilla Open Badges Backpack.

Assessment The communities work on tasks, then assess individual and group work, and provide feedback.p2pu awards badges for achievement as part of the Open Badges project (1).

46


Open Badges Project to recognize skills, achievement, and learning beyond the classroom, issued by organizations, courses and communities (1).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participants. Service Concepts & Business Models


Other URLs http://p2pu.org

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7 Reflections The foregoing sections provided a comparative overview of the OE concepts that have been

developed and partially also tested within the openED project against other currently

emerging OE cases from across the globe. This comparative overview is providing a number

of insights with regards to the maturity and state of the art of OE itself and also on possible

avenues towards allowing for the sustainability of OE and as following reflected on.

7.1 Cost per student by OE component part Component parts of the traditional formal education package that have been identified

alongside the openED project included ‘Open Content’, ‘Open Degrees’, ‘Open Assessment’,

‘Open Learning’, ‘Open Tutoring’, ‘Open Technology’, and ‘Open Communities’. The cost

per student for each of such component parts, within an OE setting is seen to vary and as

depicted within Figure 2.

Figure 1 Cost per student by OE component part; variable, fixed and cost neutral

Learning in general is a self-directed action and therefore understood as being cost neutral

from an education institution perspective. Equally ‘Open Learning’ might be considered as

being cost neutral, since no institutional resources are consumed by learning as such. The cost

of developing and maintaining ‘Open Content’ and ‘Open Technology’ might be overall

considered as being fixed costs and therefore such cost potentially significantly decrease on a

per learner base as larger as the student population becomes. ‘Open Communities’ alone, and

48

analogue to the ‘Open Learning’ case, might be at first considered as being cost neutral.

However, within an OE setting ‘Open Communities’ likely would require some type of virtual

environment to be in place and at which such a community could be established. Thus ‘Open

Communities’ might come along with a fixed cost component, as is the case for ‘Open

Content’ and ‘Open Technology’. In addition to this ‘Open Communities’ might come along

with a variable cost component since communities typically require for some type of

community support staff and the demand for such staff will be in some way proportional to

the community size. As the Open Source Software case shows nonetheless, the need for

formally employed support staff might be reduced to some degree through the involvement of

non-paid volunteers and through peer support. ‘Open Tutoring’, and analogue to traditional

tutoring, can be overall considered as being a variable cost component, though the cost of

‘Open Tutoring’ per learner like decreases with the number of learners since much of the

support that tutors within an OE setting provide could be preserved and thus remains to be

available to other learners. Finally, ‘Open Assessment’ and ‘Open Degrees’ are believed to

constitute rather variable cost positions and that do not decrease significantly per learner and

are therefore cost that are independent from the number of learners involved. In line with this,

assessment and certifications against fees has been considered as a sustainability model by

some of the cases presented in section 6. It remains to be seen however if such services alone

are sufficient to cover all of the cost positions that are depicted within Figure 2.

7.2 Extension of regular course offerings (combined) vs OE as a parallel undertaking The cases of MITx / EdX, Stanford Coursera, Stanford Udacity, Saylor Foundation, OERu,

ict@innovation, UoP, Free Technology Academy and P2PU presented within section 6 are all

examples for OE as a parallel undertaking. This is to say that those OE cases are not carried

out as an extension of the traditional formal education system of the respective education

institution, but that they constitute a parallel effort that is partly or largely disconnected from

the institutions traditional formal education system. In comparison to this, there are a number

of Open Courses (Meiszner 2010, 2011) that show how OE can be integrated into the

traditional formal education system and at which OE is thus only an extension of it, but not a

parallel effort that the institution undertakes. Integrating OE as an extension into the

traditional formal education system however is also impacting the cost involved, since the

traditional formal education element can be funded by traditional means and therefore lowers

the cost for the OE extension. In addition to this the OE element potentially provides a higher

49

value for money and in particular to the traditional formal learner population (Meiszner

2010). OE as a parallel undertaking on the other hand has a very different starting point, since

very likely no traditional formal education element has been in place that could be extended

and re-used, or where cost could be shared across the traditional formal and the OE elements.

As a result of this the initially required resources and efforts are likely higher for OE as a

parallel undertaking then it would be the case once integrating OE as an extension into the

traditional formal education system. This assumption of higher initial cost is also supported

by the above cited OE cases from section 6, which all feature a significant amount of initial

investment, which has not been observed in the case of Open Courses (Meiszner 2010).

7.3 Currently existing OE business models & service concepts The 2011 survey that has been carried out by ELIG across the breadth of the learning industry

(ELIG, 2011) has shown that there are clear indications that the commercial learning industry

has not yet fully engaged with Open Education (OE). The commercial hesitation to adopt OE

is in large part due to a perceived lack of associated new business models.

The cases presented in section 6 do however show that this perceived lack of associated new

business models is not a real lack and that OE business models and service concepts already

exist or that they are currently under development though still not covering the full potential

value chain as introduced at section 4. OE business models and service concepts that can be

seen at section 6 are: MITx/EdX and UoP intend to provide, respectively provide already,

assessment and certification services against fees, Stanford Coursera is considering to offer

premium services, Udacity considers a headhunting success fee to be paid by employers,

analogue to the openED case the OERu is considering to provide a variety of services to

learners and that in the OERu case are provided by partnering HEIs against fee, FTA is using

a tuition fee based business model, and UNUOpen considers the full range of services to be

provided as well to learners as to education providers.

Though all of such concepts are still at the very or relative early stage, they all provide an

insight on possible business models and service concepts that might be adopted to allow for

the sustainability of OE.

As a concluding note it might be highlighted that none of such cases presented within section

6 indicates that up to now the respective national education systems does support OE in the

same way as it support its traditional formal education counterpart. This is an important

50

observation in so far as in many countries education is largely public funded and thus

constitutes a part or the entirety of the business and sustainability model of national education

institutions. If OE would be equally considered by national education systems then this again

might change the type of business models and lower the burden for OE to become sustainable.

51

Annex - List of section 6 secondary sources Secondary sources used in section 7:

1 http://www.changinghighereducation.com 2 http://chronicle.com/article/Open-Access-Courses-How-

They/131677/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en 3 http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/peps-portable-education-portfolios-

outline-use-case 4 http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/oe-systems-andlearninganalytics 5 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/24/stanford-open-course-instructors-

spin-profit-company 6 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/technology/coursera-plans-to-announce-

university-partners-for-online-classes.html?_r=1 7 http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidstavens 8 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303299604577326302609615094.ht

ml 9 http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/18/coursera-raises-16m/ 10 http://bigthink.com/ideas/41180?page=all

52

References CNET, (2007), ‘The next big growth market: education’, CNET News Service, Michael

Kanellos, 11 May 2007, viewed 25 May 2012, <http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-

9718610-7.html>.

ELIG, (2011), ‘Open Education: a wake up-call for the learning industry? Is open education

fundamental to a sustainable learning industry or a noble but commercially flawed cause?’,

White Paper 2011, ELIG - the European Learning Industry Group.

ESU, (nd), ‘Gats and Education’, The European Students’ Unions, viewed viewed 25 May

2012, <http://www.esib.org/index.php/issues/Commodification/88-gats-and-education.html>.

Meiszner, A. (2011), ‘The Why and How of Open Education - With lessons from the openSE

and openED Projects’, United Nations University, UNU-MERIT, The Netherlands

Meiszner, Andreas (2010), “The Emergence of Free / Open Courses - Lessons from the Open

Source Movement”, submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Centre for Research in

Education and Educational Technology, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open

University, UK

UNESCO. (2005). ‘Towards knowledge societies: UNESCO world report’. Paris: UNESCO

Publishing

Weller J.M. and Meiszner A. (2008) ‘Report on the effectiveness of a FLOSS-like learning

community in formal educational settings’, FLOSSCom Project, 2008.