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Future Of Education Is Mobile, Social, and in the Cloud: Lessons from EduCause

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EduCause is the annual Woodstock of higher education. With a particular emphasis on “the intelligent use of information technology” in the robust arena of online education.

Over 5.6 million people enrolled in at least one online course in 2009, according to the 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning. According to OnlineColleges.org and consensus in the education field, students choose online colleges because of their convenience, affordability, 24/7 access, and flexibility. “Though the 21% growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 2% growth in the overall higher education student population” (according to the Sloan Survey), perceptual problems persist. The standard rap is that online ed suffers by comparison to its brick-and-mortar peers in academic quality, classroom engagement, and in the respect that an online degree receives from potential employers.

According to Claire Schooley, Forrester Research's senior analyst for HR (and who regularly covers the corporate education space), “Employers are often hesitant about hiring graduates with an online degree. It helps that many online colleges are accredited, but HR people just feel there may not have been enough interaction with other students online. Also, companies need more experience with online education degree programs. If they get that experience and see the proficiency, they will hire.”

Nevertheless, Don Kilburn, Vice Chairman of Higher Education at Pearson, contends that the “The next wave in education is going to be open, with shared data, and collaborating faculty." No surprise since Pearson no longer intends for its interactive materials and educational texts to be a "closed box." Instead, the publishing giant announced at EduCause that it will now allow the sharing of open source content, content from other publishers, and Pearson's proprietary content. "We fully intend, and our real strategy is, to accelerate the shift from books to digital content distribution and added technology services" for university and secondary education customers, Kilburn added.

In a nod to Seth Godin, keynote speaker at EduCause, "The power of this integration will cause some dip in our front-end earlier model of publishing,” Kilburn noted. This might be a colossal understatement given that Pearson is now giving away OpenClass, its newest Learning Management System (LMS), or what Pearson calls a "Learning Environment," though it will continue to charge for its other LMS, LearningStudio (which is geared towards fully online programs). Heretofore LMS's have cost customers upwards of several million dollars over the life of the LMS. Longer-term, however, Kilburn is confident that the OpenClass free model will triumph over paid learning management systems. According to Kilburn, this is because OpenClass is a social learning management system  that  will be a far more affordable alternative for students. Moreover, Kilburn contends that the cloud-based OpenClass will become the premier online ed distribution platform (think Facebook) for all educational stakeholders because it freely welcomes, in its very DNA, user-generated content and ideas across classrooms, campuses, and countries.

Pearson’s competitors on the EduCause floor, who were exhibiting their own closed or open source learning management systems (including LMS’s from industry-leader Blackboard), held a different view. Several (who did not wish to be named because they still sell content from Pearson) claimed that Pearson's latest LMS would create a closed loop that would allow it to monopolize its own market. In response, Kilburn said, "We will carry, for instance, McGraw-Hill books” (Pearson’s largest competitor in education content delivery) “when it makes sense and the professor wants it up. OpenClass will be open to open source content and to the content of other publishers, so that all published works can coexist."

Going forward, as a bellwether of what is happening generally in publishing, and in educational publishing in particular, Pearson may be less about Gutenberg and more about technology services and consulting. Whether this new analytics-driven model pans out financially remains to be seen.  What is clear from Pearson, and from EduCause, is that the future of education publshing will be digital, social, and freely accessible, right to your mobile device.

Additional reporting by Mike Smith.

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