Postgraduate Education at a Distance: Imperatives and Challenges

Alan Tait

Professor of Distance Education and Development

Pro Vice-Chancellor, The Open University

Contents

• Introduction to The Open University UK• Postgraduate advanced study at a distance• Student Success: what does it look like?• Quality: for whom?• Implications for Brazil?

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People Places Methods Ideas

Our mission

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Operating at scale

• The UK’s largest university, teaching 35% of all part-time undergraduate students in the UK each year

• Over 296,000 students registered with us last year, 36% online

• We offer 156 postgraduate and 397 undergraduate courses, and we have 15 curriculum partnerships established in 23 countries

• The OU currently makes over 44,000 academic awards annually

• There are 6,500 associate lectures who hold 13,700 teaching appointments

• 163,000 active users of our Moodle based Virtual Learning Environment

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Student headcount, 20010/11

167,600

16,400

8,600

4,500

3,200

8,800

5,100

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Operating at scale

Our students

• The average age of our new undergraduate students is just 31

• Over 71% of our students work full or part-time

during their studies

• 11% of our students are from ethnic minorities

• 13,538 of our students declare a disability

• 45% have 1 ‘A’ level or lower at entry

• Three out of four FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff on OU courses

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1999/00 2004/05 2009/10

Below standard HE entry

Standard HE entry

HE qualification

Unknown

38.8% 34.3% 51.0%

19.1% 19.7% 8.1%

33.5% 33.4% 30.9%

8.6% 12.7% 10.0%

New UK undergraduates

We are diverse

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Our student support

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Annually•1.2 million telephone calls•665,000 emails•932,500 student assignments•96,000 examinations•96,000 end-of-course assessments

Our research

• Ranked in top third of UK HEIs– 1,200 research students– 400 at Affiliated Research Centres

• Major international strengths in Computing, Design, Earth & Environmental Sciences, English

• Open Research Online - 19,000 research publications freely available - 1.9 million visits

• Major research institutes – Knowledge Media Institute and Institute of Educational Technology

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Quality assured

• The OU remains in the top three in the UK for student satisfaction in the latest National Student Survey

• The 2011 Institutional Audit by the Quality Assurance Agency confirmed the academic standards of our awards, and of the learning opportunities available to students, identifying a number of significant areas of good practice

• Over 200 Open University validated higher education programmes delivered by 28 approved institutions worldwide

• 320 students studying research degrees in 25 affiliated research centres worldwide

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Direct teaching to transnational

students globally

Direct teaching to transnational

students globally

Strategic partnerships with providers in key national markets

Strategic partnerships with providers in key national markets

License module content to training

and higher education institutions worldwide

License module content to training

and higher education institutions worldwide

Current Position•7,400 students in Europe•700 students outside EuropeAmbition•To develop and market a first-of-its-kind, high quality and globally available, distance education offering

Current Position•Several partnerships in countries with limited scaleAmbition•To form several collaborative teaching partnerships that provide the OU with promising positions in large markets

Current Position•Over 500,00 students in China•Several longstanding agreements with international HE institutionsAmbition•Invest in future opportunities

We are global

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TESSA Teacher Education

in Sub Saharan AfricaHEAT

Health Education and Training

English in Action

Radically transforming the quality of teaching(430,000+ student teachers)

Building capacity of frontline healthcare workers

(250,000 health workers by 2016)

Technology enhanced teacher education

(15 million learners by 2017)

We tackle global challenges

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Multi-channel

• 100 million views of OU programmes in the UK annually

• More than 1billion viewing or listening events internationally each year

• Typically 1 million UK viewers respond to the OU call to action after watching a programme

• 44% of the adult viewing population watched at least one episode of Frozen Planet in the series

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iTunes UKey facts:

• Over 50 million downloads

• Over 5.8 million visitors downloaded files

• Currently averaging over 470,000 downloads a week

• 90 % of visitors from outside the UK

• 1 in 28 downloaders go on to visit the OU website

• At launch in January 2012 there were 51 OU courses on the Apple all-new iTunes U app

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• 21 million visits since its launch in 2006

• OpenLearn averages 400,000 unique visitors a month

• 7,000 hours of learning materials taken from our undergraduate and postgraduate modules

• 595 active study units, plus educational interactives, topical videos, academic blogs, access to OU podcasts and free printed materials

• In a world first, The OU launched a 'fact of the day' iGoogle Gadget that links to OpenLearn via their iGoogle homepage

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OU Module completions by level30 and 60 credit modules only

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Level 1 +71%

Level 2 +3%

Level 3 +9%

Undergraduate module pass rates 2010/11

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Source: IET Student Statistics

Percentage pass rate

OU Level

Postgraduate Education: Taught and Research Based Degrees

• Open University and the UK

• Taught postgraduate students, UK = 484,000 (314,000 UK only)

• Doctoral students, UK = 103,000 (60,000 UK only)

• Total postgraduate students, UK – 587,000 (374,000 UK only)

• UK population 62m, so 1:105 population ratio

• Brazil population 203m, so 1.93m postgraduate students at same rate

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What has been achieved at The Open University UK?

• MBA – 3102 current students• Triple accredited: EQUIS; AACSB; AMBA• Masters in Education – 1911 students• Masters in International Development – 651 students

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Doctoral level

• 1200 PhD students• 600 full-time and 600 part-time• ‘Taught doctoral students’• Doctorate in Education (EdD) 181

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• Professional and vocational focus• Exciting pedagogy• Found content: appropriate for post-graduate• Tutor and peer support on-line• Minimum size of programme: market led provision• Brand relaunch

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Open University Review of Taught Postgraduate Programmes

What are the challenges? • To add capacity for Advanced Higher Education • At scale• With vision for inclusion and social justice• What can be done?• What should be done?

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Postgraduate Education at a Distance

The Challenges• Quality of student experience?• Extent to which students achieve their goals?• Market value of qualifications?

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Quality• Perceived issues• Real issues• Policy outcomes

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Quality: Perceived Issues• Distance education is not real education• Face to face on a campus is only authentic learning experience• Distance education qualifications are not recognised

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• Distance education academics are second rate• Distance universities don’t do research• Distance universities are motivated by money not

education

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Postgraduate Education at a Distance

Drop Out is Bad

• Distance teaching methods are second rate• Distance education as a method cannot

support success to the same degree as traditional universities

• Distance education students are second rate

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Apples and Pears

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Some Answers and the Real Issues

• Distance students are usually part-time• Do not usually come from the most advantaged

sections of society• Distance institutions can and should focus on

learning and teaching• The notion of ‘student centred’

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To make achievement of students’ goals focus of organisation

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Student-centred: What does it mean?

Learner Support Framework at The Open University• Enquirer support• Pre Course support• Study support :

a) Support for assignmentsb) Mid course supportc) Support for examinationsd) Career information and advice

• Support for progression• Intervention and response• Data to support all stages, with performance targets

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For the University•A reputation for access, quality and achievement•The first choice for students•A benchmark for other HEIs•Adapting and evolving, the leadership edge•Meeting recruitment, retention and completion targets

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For students

•Coherent, personal and targeted

•Enable students to:– achieve their study goals– achieve their personal and career

development goals– enhance their contribution to society

The vision for the student experience

Where do we need to be?

• Students achieve their goals• Qualification becomes mode-free• Government policy become mode-free• Recognition of qualifications becomes mode-free

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Importance of Mission

• ‘Open to people, places, methods and ideas’

• ‘Playing a unique role in society making Higher Education open to all; promoting social justice through the development of knowledge and skills’

• ‘Leading the learning revolution’• ‘Responding to the needs of

individuals and employers …. dedicated to supporting our students’ learning success

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Benefits of Masters Education

• Pre-experience preparation for career• Post-experience enhancement for career• Preparation for academic career• Skills and knowledge for society and economy• Benefit to individual

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Brazil Higher Education

• 2007 – 10% of 18-24 year olds in Higher Education

• Higher Education available in 30% of Brazil’s cities

• 2600 Universities• Drop out at 50%

Holzhacker and Prates, 2008

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‘Between 2007 and 2009, the proportion of 25-64 year olds with a tertiary degree had risen by only 1 percentage point to 11%, a slower rate than the OECD average’

OECD Education at a Glance, 2011

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More recent developments in Brazil

• Studying in Brazil• Outside Brazil• Ratios per head of population

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More recent developments in Brazil

Brazil: Rising Star

• If ratios in UK are what is needed in a developed country, Brazil would need to build how many campuses?

• Thus the imperative for distance and e-learning• Policy intervention is essential

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Time to rethink Masters Degrees?

• From ‘found content’ to OERs• Importance of intermediate qualifications,

e.g. Postgrad Certificate and Diploma• Emergence of ‘soft badging’, e.g. Microsoft and

Mozilla• Price, value and return on investment

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Summary

• Postgraduate education will be of value to society, economy and individual

• Capacity cannot be met for working adults by traditional methods

• Nor can overall capacity be met on campuses

• Distance and e-learning can and should be significant contribution

• Quality and relevance are key

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‘E outra vez conquistaremos a

Distância – Do mar ou outra,

mas que seja nossa!’

Fernando Pessoa, Prece, 1921

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