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What is the problem we’re trying to solve?

Perhaps the goals of access, equity and quality are too vague – what are we really trying to achieve? If we are trying to address the global need for higher education - the gap of 150 million more college graduates that Sir John Daniel of the Commonwealth of Learning talks about – then we need to think beyond traditional, formal higher education institutions as the means to closing the gap. We need to focus on the end goal – human development.

One solution is to bridge formal and informal learning. In the U.S., nearly 13% of all adults who use the Internet have taken an online class. The Pew Internet for Life project, estimates that 160 million adults use the internet and that 20.8 million say they have taken an online course for personal enrichment or fun. That total is significantly higher than those participating in higher education. Likewise, OER’s biggest users, according to the MIT data, are self-learners. What can we do to help these self-learners earn a degree? For decades, adult-serving institutions have been enabling learners to maximize their experience for transfer credit. We can look to them for models.

A model in the form of a virtual university is the Western Governor’s University (WGU). Celebrating 10 years and 8,000 students, WGU is one model that did come out of the 90’s heyday of online learning’s promise. It is a competency-based assessment-only university accredited by four of the six accrediting bodies in the U.S. (an innovation in itself). To earn your degree, you work with an advisor and a rigorous assessment process to demonstrate that you’ve achieved the knowledge, skills and behaviors required by the competencies defined for your degree. Following in the footsteps of other adult-serving institutions, it doesn’t matter how you earned the knowledge, but that you can provide evidence of your achievement.

Another model for bridging formal and informal has been proposed by Jim Taylor at the University of Southern Queensland. Taylor describes a concept for an Open Courseware University. In this model, self-learners using OER from Open Courseware Consortium members would be supported by volunteer tutors and gain credit on-demand from providing institutions. Credits earned in this way from various institutions would be aggregated by a new mechanism that would award accredited degrees. This model lowers costs and increases scalability by using innovations in academic support and accreditation to leverage online learning using OER.

Conclusion

Unless a new solution to the world’s higher education gap is created out of the strengths of OER, and online learning, these promising innovations will have limited impact in terms of increasing access. They will certainly be used by faculty and institutions to increase the quality of their offerings and to extend their reach from existing activities. We can go a long way through incremental innovations to existing practices. But, online learning and OER alone will not be enough to make a dent in closing the gap. We need creative ways of bridging informal and formal learning. We need teaching, learning and student support systems enabled by the efficiencies of OER and online learning. We need to expand the frame of the problem, and therefore the solutions, in terms of both the means (institutions) and the ends (human development). By focusing on solutions for human development, we can realize the unique strengths of OER and online learning as significant innovations.

Questions & Answers

A golfer on a fairway is 70 m away from the green, which sits below the level of the fairway by 20 m. If the golfer hits the ball at an angle of 40° with an initial speed of 20 m/s, how close to the green does she come?
Aislinn Reply
cm
tijani
what is titration
John Reply
what is physics
Siyaka Reply
A mouse of mass 200 g falls 100 m down a vertical mine shaft and lands at the bottom with a speed of 8.0 m/s. During its fall, how much work is done on the mouse by air resistance
Jude Reply
Can you compute that for me. Ty
Jude
what is the dimension formula of energy?
David Reply
what is viscosity?
David
what is inorganic
emma Reply
what is chemistry
Youesf Reply
what is inorganic
emma
Chemistry is a branch of science that deals with the study of matter,it composition,it structure and the changes it undergoes
Adjei
please, I'm a physics student and I need help in physics
Adjanou
chemistry could also be understood like the sexual attraction/repulsion of the male and female elements. the reaction varies depending on the energy differences of each given gender. + masculine -female.
Pedro
A ball is thrown straight up.it passes a 2.0m high window 7.50 m off the ground on it path up and takes 1.30 s to go past the window.what was the ball initial velocity
Krampah Reply
2. A sled plus passenger with total mass 50 kg is pulled 20 m across the snow (0.20) at constant velocity by a force directed 25° above the horizontal. Calculate (a) the work of the applied force, (b) the work of friction, and (c) the total work.
Sahid Reply
you have been hired as an espert witness in a court case involving an automobile accident. the accident involved car A of mass 1500kg which crashed into stationary car B of mass 1100kg. the driver of car A applied his brakes 15 m before he skidded and crashed into car B. after the collision, car A s
Samuel Reply
can someone explain to me, an ignorant high school student, why the trend of the graph doesn't follow the fact that the higher frequency a sound wave is, the more power it is, hence, making me think the phons output would follow this general trend?
Joseph Reply
Nevermind i just realied that the graph is the phons output for a person with normal hearing and not just the phons output of the sound waves power, I should read the entire thing next time
Joseph
Follow up question, does anyone know where I can find a graph that accuretly depicts the actual relative "power" output of sound over its frequency instead of just humans hearing
Joseph
"Generation of electrical energy from sound energy | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore" ***ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7150687?reload=true
Ryan
what's motion
Maurice Reply
what are the types of wave
Maurice
answer
Magreth
progressive wave
Magreth
hello friend how are you
Muhammad Reply
fine, how about you?
Mohammed
hi
Mujahid
A string is 3.00 m long with a mass of 5.00 g. The string is held taut with a tension of 500.00 N applied to the string. A pulse is sent down the string. How long does it take the pulse to travel the 3.00 m of the string?
yasuo Reply
Who can show me the full solution in this problem?
Reofrir Reply
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Source:  OpenStax, The impact of open source software on education. OpenStax CNX. Mar 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10431/1.7
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