Anderson, T., & McGreal, R. (2012). Disruptive Pedagogies and Technologies in Universities (original) (raw)

The Impact of New Business Models for Higher Education on Student Financing

2011

The easiest way to help students finance their participation in higher education is to make it less expensive. The traditional view is that this is impossible because universities depend on highly expert academics, who like other professionals such as dentists, are subject to the ‘cost disease’ because of the length and expense of their training. Today, however, some who developed notion of the cost disease are changing their minds. Technology will be a game changer in higher education through its impact on the behaviour of students and for-profit institutions. The paper first outlines the principles behind the use of technology to cut costs and describes trends that indicate a tipping point in the evolution of the economics of higher education. Finally, we explore the components of the proposed Open Education Resource University, which is one example of a radically new business model.

College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education by Ryan Craig

The Review of Higher Education, 2015

organized logically, some additional scholarship could be helpful in further articulating the theory. For example, a discussion regarding resource dependency theory could be useful in providing readers unfamiliar with organizational theory some context to understanding competition and the need for institutions to acquire funding. This theory was present in Slaughter and Leslie's (1997) introductory text of academic capitalism and was alluded to throughout this book but additional context could serve readers well in conceptualizing the increasing need to facilitate funding streams and broaden networks. Perhaps this topic fell outside of Cantwell and Kauppinen's scope, but this would have enhanced the book. Still, Cantwell and Kauppinen have done a fantastic job in bringing university administrators, policy makers, faculty members, researchers, and doctoral students up to speed on the topic of academic capitalism as it pertains to their various roles on college campuses across the country and world. RefeRences

Online Learning and Higher Ed’s Dark Secret

Academic Questions, 2020

How quickly things change. As late as 2017 the late Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen was still defending his belief, put forth in his 2011 book The Innovative University, that online learning represented a "disruptive technology" that would close or bankrupt about "half of all colleges in the United States." 1 Today, several months into a pandemic that looks almost designed to obliterate campus-based higher education, college officials see distance learning as higher education's lifeline. Not only is the entire California State University-the nation's largest-going exclusively online in the fall of 2020, but a survey conducted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities found that 36 percent of college presidents "anticipate continuing virtual instruction for all of 2020-2021." 2 But isolating course content from the physical college experience could reveal a fundamental misconception about what colleges teach, bringing with it a salutary diminution of the unearned market power of colleges and universities. Christensen's "disruption" may yet occur. Universal online learning might be the perfect vehicle to address what has become one of the nation's most intractable structural defects: economic mobility in America is largely dependent on a higher education system that pauperizes a large portion of those who seek it.

The Online Education Controversy and the Future of the University

The neo-liberal reform of the university has had a huge impact on higher education and promises still more changes in the future. Many of these changes have had a negative impact on academic careers, values, and the educational experience. Educational technology plays an important role in the defense of neo-liberal reform, less through actual accomplishment than as a rhetorical justification for supposed ''progress.'' This paper outlines the main claims and consequences of this rhetorical strategy and its actual effects on the university to date.

IJED Special Issue Editorial: Global Trends in Higher Education Financing

International Journal of Educational Development, 2018

Global trends in higher education financing are in many ways unsustainable under traditional models of higher education financing and delivery. The cost of higher education continues to escalate at an alarming rate in the United States and globally. Public funding sources from around the world are increasingly under pressure to reduce allocations towards higher education while at the same time maintaining quality and raising outcome expectations. This unsustainable trend was one of the central themes of Christensen and Eyring (2011) in their book The Innovative University where they introduced the concept of disruptive innovation as a necessary requirement to meet the inevitable changes in U.S. higher education financing and delivery of courses. Christensen later argued that innovations and improvements in online delivery will continue to become a more cost-effective way for students to receive their higher education training, rendering traditional higher education finance and delivery models obsolete and uncompetitive within a very short time period (e.g., 10-15 years). This will lead to increased closures, mergers, and investments in healthier, more robust higher education financing and delivery models (

How Low Can You Go? The Tuition-Free Business Model of the University of the People

telem-pub.openu.ac.il

This paper presents the recent emergence of organizations that offer tuitionfree academic education by leveraging various online tools. The feasibility of such offers is analyzed by exploring a variable cost minimization (VCM) approach created by the California-based nonprofit The University of the People (UoPeople). This approach cuts undergraduate tuition to US$4,000 or less per program, by replacing instructors with peer-to-peer learning processes, and by charging students only for admissions and for examination. An analysis of the VCM approach as implemented by UoPeople shows that it fails on two fronts. Firstly, it is based on an unsubstantiated assertion that peer-to-peer learning can replace, altogether, the need for a skilled and trained online instructor. Secondly, even if it is possible for some students to teach themselves without the involvement of an instructor, an economic analysis shows that the cost of instruction is only one of several line items in the budget of an accredited online academic program. Academic programs that remove critical variable cost services such as teaching and student advising, fail students by neglecting to provide them with the minimal support they are entitled to. The risks, as well as the significant promise of the VCM approach are discussed.