MOOCs challenge higher education’s business models

Geoff Maslen writes, "Elite universities with global brands – and those with at least national prominence – will be least affected by the sudden onset of massive open online courses or MOOCs, because they will always have markets for people willing to pay for the elite model of education, says a new report by the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education."

Photo: University World News

Prepared by William Lawton and Alex Katsomitros, the report, MOOCs and Disruptive Innovation: The challenge to HE business models, says it is also clear that many in the elite group of universities have calculated they have little to lose by joining the MOOC club now to extend their reach.

Later they may increase their intake to degree courses and help meet their widening-participation obligations.

“Universities could therefore use MOOCs as a way of determining whether disadvantaged groups or those with poorer school results might in fact thrive on their degree courses,” Lawton and Katsomitros write.

“Rahul Choudaha recently asked whether MOOCs could 'lead to the decline of branch campuses' and concluded that new branch campuses would at least face competition from MOOCs. It is of course early days but it might be better to think of MOOCs and international branch campuses as independent internationalisation strategy options,” write the report authors.
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Source: University World News