ANU Innovation in Teaching Showcase

The Australian National University is holding the 2018 CAP – CASS Innovation in Teaching Showcase in Canberra, 4 & 5 September. The ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, and the College of Arts and Social Sciences will discuss teaching innovations. Highlights include ANU language courses with Open Universities Australia. The event is free and all teachers and academics are invited to register through Eventbrite.

Australian University Campuses Are Not Too Large

In "Rise of the monster campus devouring uni communities" (The Australian, 18 April 2018), Geoff Hanmer, Managing Director of ARINA suggests the ideal university campus has 10,000 to 20,000 students. He cautions Australia has too many large campuses and points out the average US four-year college has less than 5,000 students, whereas the median for Australian universities is over 20,000.

I agree that large university campuses can be overwhelming.  But where the university blends with the city, as it does in Oxford, Cambridge, Melbourne and Canberra, a large university can add to a vibrant urban culture.

Australia doesn't have many small US style colleges, as government regulations and international market don't encourage them. The regulations make it difficult to set up a non-university tertiary institution and the market makes it hard to sell such an institution to an international market.

Hanmer points out that smaller campuses have higher Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) scores. However, universities use their research ranking to market to students and those rankings favor the large institutions. Students are not very interested in teaching quality when looking for an institution. After enrolling and discovering that a research reputation doesn't equate good teaching, it is too late to change.


In any case, the move to on-line education is resulting in student numbers being decoupled from campus size. My rule of thumb is that the average student needs to do 20% of their studies on campus. A university with one campus can have 50,000 to 100,000 full time equivalent students enrolled and still be in Hanmer's "sweet spot". Only one fifth of these students would be on campus at the same time.

It should be noted that one of Australia's largest universities already has 60,000 students and no campus. This is the Open Universities Australia on-line consortium of institutions.

Australia's Largest University Hidden

In "Australia doesn’t have too many universities. Here’s why" (The Conversation, 15 March 2018), Gavin Moodie, Adjunct professor, RMIT University, compares enrollments of Australia, Canadian and UK universities. He concludes that the average Australian university has twice as many students as the UK and triple Canada. However, the distribution of students amongst students at Australian universities differs from Canada and the UK, and our largest institution does not appear in the lists.

Australia has an almost even spread of small, medium and large universities. Canada has many more small institutions and a few very large ones. The University of Toronto is about 50% larger than the next largest. The UK statistics are dominated by the Open University UK (OUUK). 

The closest Australian equivalent to the OUUK is Open Universities Australia (OUA). The students in the OUA consortium are usually hidden in the statistics of the member universities. If counted as a university, OUA would rival Melbourne as the largest in Australia.

As Gavin Moodie writes, a university with less than 10,000 students would have difficulty providing the range of teaching and research required. However, OUA provides an alternative model. Australia doesn't have to make a choice between small and large universities. Universities can cooperate to make better use of shared resources, while retaining an identity, local presence and brand.

University Advertising Failing to Make the Grade

Australian universities are currently using TV advertisements to attract on-line students.

In 2016 Swinburne University's "We're here for you" campaign,  had a tutor appear in person, seemingly out of nowhere, to help an on-line student in a cafe. This year their "Let's Do This" is less silly, apart from having a cat in it. One annoying point was when the narrator says "... lets make the grade ..." the screen shows the word "Distinction" and a tick. Universities should, I suggest, avoid giving students unrealistic expectations of how easy study is and in particular distance eduction. Students should not be given the idea that making the grade means getting a distinction. This may contribute to the high levels of stress and mental illness experienced by students.

In contrast, Open Universities Australia's 'Stop asking "What if?" and find out "What now?"' campaign focuses on ease of enrollment. This is much more low key (perhaps too low key) and doesn't set too many unrealistic expectations. While I found being an on-line student very stressful, enrolling proved relatively simple. One difficulty OUA have is explaining exactly what it is: not a university, but a consortia of universalities, offering on-line courses.

Open Universities of the Commonwealth

Garrett's  The State of Open Universities in the Commonwealth is a detailed 56 page examination of pioneering institutions, starting with the Open University (UKOU), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the University of South Africa (UNISA). The study then looks at Athabasca University (AU), National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Open Universities Australia (OUA), Open University Malaysia (OUM), Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), University of the South Pacific (USP) and University of the West Indies (UWI). Other institutions with open access are also examined in passing, including University of Southern Queensland (USQ), which I have been a student of (along with Athabasca).


As Garrett notes, these open institutions were intended to increase access and at lower cost, than conventional universities. An apparent trend is that the larger institutions (100,000 to 500,000 students) are growing, whereas smaller ones (less than 20,000) are declining. The report also notes that open university can be a difficult experience for students, especially for undergraduates. Another interesting point is that innovations, such as MOOCs, are not being lead by the open universities.

One area the report does not address is the experience for academic staff at open universities. Like students these institutions can be frustrating for the staff.

One point the report does not make is that open universities tend to be cooperative in nature. As an example, Open Universities Australia is not a university, but a group of mostly conventional campus based institutions which come together to offer on-line programs. Even OUA, which was created as a separate institution, found it had to call on the resources and staff of existing universities, particularly in the early years.

The report also does not address the vocational nature of open university, with students mostly enrolling to get a better job. It is perhaps this, which makes the character of open university different. Also many open universities teach courses which would be considered below university level, at least in Australia.

The major problem with this report is that it limits analysis to institution based in countries which are members of the "Commonwealth".  It is not clear that previous British colonies have enough in common to form a meaningful group. Also this excludes countries with interesting and important open universities. As an example, the Open University of Hong Kong is excluded, as while it was established in 1989 during British rule, Hong Kong left the Commonwealth in 1997.

My reading of this, and other reports, suggest that for a successful open university you need at least 100,000 students and a focus on vocationally relevant postgraduate programs. A good place to start are graduate courses for teachers.

Universities are reassessing their teaching techniques and what they teach. Employers are demanding graduates with more work relevant skills and students not from a conventional academic background require different teaching and support. Along with the move to on-line education, this is likely to result in conventional universities taking on the characteristics of open universities.

Small, high cost, campus based universities, focused on producing academics, will no doubt continue to have a role, but a very limited one. Just as paper mail and paper money still exist in a digital world, but are of limited use, "campus" universities will exist as a specialized service.

References

Garrett, R. (2016). The State of Open Universities in the Commonwealth: A perspective on performance, competition and innovation. Retrieved from: http://dspace.col.org/bitstream/handle/11599/2048/2016_Garrett_State-of-Open-Universities.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Open2Study MOOCs Research Report

Open Universities Australia have been running free open source courses under the "Open2Study" brand for several months. They have released a series of reports on how the students went.  The latest is "Research Report October 2013" (actually released in November 2013). This 128 report is well worth reading for any educator or university administrator considering running a "MOOC". But it is doing the Open2Study courses a disservice to call them MOOCs.

From March to October 2013, Open2Study had 100,000 students in 32 courses, with a 24% completion rate (much higher than MOOC's 5 to 10%).

While these are free open and on-line, they are much smaller and more personal than the average "MOOC". As touched on in my talk at the Inaugural Student Experience Conference, 4 December 2013 in Sydney, OUA seem to have a good formula for introducing students to higher education.These courses have more of the flavor of a vocational education program, than university, which is not a bad thing.

However, what is not clear is how many of the students who undertake the free Open2Study courses then enroll in the fee paying OUA on-line courses, or conventional on-campus courses of the member organizations. It is not viable for OUA to give away free courses in competition with its fee paying ones.