MOOCS: “Clicks not bricks”

Is this the end of the Campus?

Professor Don NutbeamVice-Chancellor, University of Southampton

End of the campus...?

Clicks not bricks?

End of the campus – the avalanche is coming

• Education’s “Napster moment”• Once University content is available for free (or

nearly), who will ever pay £9000+ for a university education?

• Once University content can be delivered when and where people want it, who will turn up at lectures ever again?

• The conclusion is obvious - MOOC or die (and do it quickly)

• Neither quality nor reputation can stop the avalanche

End of the campus – I don’t think so

• Smart universities will embrace MOOCs - using them and the technologies they foster to advance innovations in teaching and learning, and expand markets for education

• MOOCS add to options for learning on campus, extending access to content for large numbers of learners, and opportunities for interaction with these other learners

• Challenge is to optimise the campus experience by embracing the digital movement, and freeing up the timetable to allow for higher quality contact time

• More like acceleration of an existing process of evolution than seismic revolution

End of the campus? – possibly the end of the lecture

• MOOCs (and the technologies they foster) can liberate students and academics from the traditional lecture

• The added value of a campus education will come increasingly from higher quality, interactive teaching and learning, and through the development of highly prized transferable skills

• More time for hands-on laboratory experience, small group work, and for group working with fellow students.

• Wider range of opportunities for creative assessment and feedback

MOOCs = more choice & flexibility

MOOCS = more choice and flexibility on campus

• Greater flexibility in access to content and whole modules – where and when students want it

• Greater opportunity to exercise choice in modules, to personalise education

• Accelerate moves to major/minor degrees• Federations of universities providing articulated

degrees – different modules provided by different universities

• Will lead to continued evolution in campus design, learning and social spaces

• Will require us to look again at the definition of a “contact hour”

End of the campus...?

Clicks AND Bricks