Higher Education Whisperer in Times Higher Education Blog

A couple of weeks ago, Sara Custer, Digital editor of Times Higher Education asked if I would write some comment pieces for their blog, or re-posts from my blog. She suggested my posts on the Ramsey Center for Western Civilization, digital technology for partition rooms, or dispersal of international students across Australia as candidates. I nominated my Ramsey Center post. Today I realized I heard nothing more, so went to look at the THE Blog, where I found: "Can a degree in Western civilisation prepare students for 21st century jobs?", January 16, 2019.

The post elicited some comments (I am surprised there were not more). One comment suggested that India was ruled by classically-trained Oxford graduates. Leaving aside the question as to if they governed well, not all rulers of India were classically educated in Oxford. The last Viceroy of India, Louis Mountbatten, attended naval college, was a Senior Wireless Instructor at the Naval Signals School, and a member of Institution of Electrical Engineers. He did also study English literature at Christ's College Cambridge, but only for two terms. Not all India's colonial rulers had this level of technical training, but they were backed by people who did, and could use advanced technology to suppress rebellion.

A second comment suggested that a degree should teach  how to learn and think critically. I agree, but that does not preclude also teaching skills, and knowledge useful in a specific vocation. Many people have had successful careers outside the area they were trained in, but I would prefer they were trained for some sort of career, rather than none at all.

Charles Darwin University in Top 4% Globally

Charles Darwin University claims to be "... ranked in the top two percent of universities worldwide", based on the THE World University Rankings. However, CDU is ranked 301–350 out of 1,000 institutions, placing it in the top 30%, not 2%. In 2017 the UK Advertising Standards Authority issued guidelines to stop UK universities making similar misleading claims.  Perhaps similar guidelines are needed in Australia.

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universites places CDU 1,165 out of 27,000 institutions. So it would be reasonable for CDU to claim to be ranked in the top four percent of universities worldwide, on that evidence.

Digital Learning is the Present and the Future

In reviewing Clare Howell Major's book "Teaching Online", Sandra Leaton Gray writes "Digital learning may be the future, but the present is more uncertain" (Times Higher Education, 3 September 2015). No, e-learning is not the future, it is the here and now. It may be called flipped, or blended, or just "the notes are on the web", but having an on-line component in a university course is now commonplace. Within five years I expect it will be 80% of all education at the upper secondary and higher education.

I have not read Clare Howell Major's book, but this review seems to be, at least in part, about the reviewer's  skepticism of e-learning than the book itself. It may be uncertain in some UK universities (more about that later), but in Australia at least digital learning is now routine.

Courses which are entirely on-line are rarer than blended, but even Australia's leading research institution, the Australian National University, is offering 125 on-line courses for 2016 (19 undergraduate and 106 graduate), plus a new on-line Law degree.

Sandra Leaton Gray comments "... you sit at home and converse on a forum with other committed students and a leading lecturer at a world-class university ...". That is not a vision of the future, I have been teaching postgraduates on-line at a world class university (and lesser institutions)  for six years. This was after an epiphany in 2008, when I announced to a class of ANU students it would be my last lecture (ever).  It has taken years to learn how to teach on-line, but it now seems very routine.

There are problems with the quality of some on-line courses. This is more of a problem at the undergraduate level, where students need more hand-holding. The more mature the students and more real-world work experience they have, the easier they are to teach (especially on-line).

It helps if the staff are trained and qualified to design and deliver on-line courses. There are decades of research and practical experience, on what to do and how to do it, what works and what doesn't work. Higher Education institutions have been offering specialized qualifications in on-line learning (previously called "Distance Education") for at least twenty years.

On-line learning is not that different to other teaching, or at least that is what I told the staff at University of Cambridge a few weeks ago, when they asked me for some tips to teach their graduates on-line (Cambridge has adopted the Moodle free open source learning management system, from Australia).

And this is what I will be telling teachers at the IT education stream of the Australian Computer Society Annual Canberra Conference next week.