Covid-19 Response: Evidence of How Higher Ed Can Be Completely Restructured?

[spork]

It would have been interesting if they'd asked what proportion of value it had relative to face to face; 80%? 60%?
Theoretically, if the tuition were reduced by the right proportion, students would be satisfied with the experience.

Yes, that's what matters.

Here https://www.nber.org/papers/w28511#fromrss is some evidence and analysis that claims students would be willing to pay only 4% more for on-site classes than on-line classes  -- holding everything else constant.

This suggests that many students find on-line instruction to be a reasonable substitute for on-site instruction.

Students would pay 8% more for on-site amenities.

I find those numbers surprisingly small, but they do vary a lot across students.

Coursera moves closer to IPO:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/09/coursera-ipo-filing-reveals-company-successfully-monetizing-moocs.

[dr_codex]

It would have been interesting if they'd asked what proportion of value it had relative to face to face; 80%? 60%?
Theoretically, if the tuition were reduced by the right proportion, students would be satisfied with the experience.

Yes, that's what matters.

Here https://www.nber.org/papers/w28511#fromrss is some evidence and analysis that claims students would be willing to pay only 4% more for on-site classes than on-line classes  -- holding everything else constant.

This suggests that many students find on-line instruction to be a reasonable substitute for on-site instruction.

Students would pay 8% more for on-site amenities.

I find those numbers surprisingly small, but they do vary a lot across students.

Coursera moves closer to IPO:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/09/coursera-ipo-filing-reveals-company-successfully-monetizing-moocs.

Covid probably accelerated this trend, but it was always the long game.

Anybody who ever thought that one of the O's was for Open didn't sit through the meetings I did, and see the gleam of dollar signs dance in the eyes of administrators.

Can we start calling the MOC(K)s now?

[Hibush]

It would have been interesting if they'd asked what proportion of value it had relative to face to face; 80%? 60%?
Theoretically, if the tuition were reduced by the right proportion, students would be satisfied with the experience.

Yes, that's what matters.

Here https://www.nber.org/papers/w28511#fromrss is some evidence and analysis that claims students would be willing to pay only 4% more for on-site classes than on-line classes  -- holding everything else constant.

This suggests that many students find on-line instruction to be a reasonable substitute for on-site instruction.

Students would pay 8% more for on-site amenities.

I find those numbers surprisingly small, but they do vary a lot across students.

Coursera moves closer to IPO:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/09/coursera-ipo-filing-reveals-company-successfully-monetizing-moocs.

Covid probably accelerated this trend, but it was always the long game.

Anybody who ever thought that one of the O's was for Open didn't sit through the meetings I did, and see the gleam of dollar signs dance in the eyes of administrators.

Can we start calling the MOC(K)s now?

"Wall Street is desperately seeking high-growth, consumer-based businesses like what Coursera has become," Pianko said. "Massive eyeballs with a repeatable, freemium model drives the types of lofty valuations that the Coursera IPO achieves."

This quote makes me consider the contrast with how college leaders are speaking about their finances.

Can you imagine, "Wall Street is desperately seeking high-growth, consumer-based businesses like what MacMaster has become," the MacMaster Board Chair said. "Massive eyeballs with a repeatable, freemium model drives the types of lofty valuations that the MacMaster IPO achieves."?

[marshwiggle]

Coursera moves closer to IPO:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/09/coursera-ipo-filing-reveals-company-successfully-monetizing-moocs.

Lots of fascinating stuff in that article. One section:

Although it is still possible to audit many Coursera courses for free, the company has evolved significantly since its early days as a provider of massive open online courses, or MOOCS. The platform's combination of paid nondegree certificates, stackable degrees and professional credentials has forged a company with an estimated value of between $2.4 billion and $5 billion.

"Wall Street is desperately seeking high-growth, consumer-based businesses like what Coursera has become," Pianko said. "Massive eyeballs with a repeatable, freemium model drives the types of lofty valuations that the Coursera IPO achieves."

Introductory courses in lots of disciplines are pretty interchangeable. Also, because of the scale, it's possible to empirically determine good pedagogy for those courses, so it's inevitable that these can be delivered economically to a huge audience.

The "freemium" model means that people can learn stuff cheaply, so the only cost to the student will be certification, i.e. proving they have learned the material. Developing the infrastructure to authenticate students' tests and so on will be crucial for this to succeed. One option is for institutions to "farm out" the content delivery, and just do the testing in-house.

It will be interesting to see when institutions start accepting these credentials for transfer, and/or incorporating  the instruction along with their own testing as I mentioned above. In some way or another, it's inevitable.

The growth opportunity for bricks-and-mortar institutions is to develop their own unique courses. If they're popular enough, then they could eventually be licensed to online providers for big bucks.

The writing will be on the wall for places that only offer generic courses that are basically the same as what is offered at dozens of other institutions.

[spork]

Pandemic may have permanently altered campus:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-pandemic-may-have-permanently-altered-campuses-heres-how.

(paywalled)

[spork]

The phoneless university:

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/learning-innovation/will-covid-zoom-kill-campus-desk-phone.

[Caracal]

The phoneless university:

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/learning-innovation/will-covid-zoom-kill-campus-desk-phone.

I'm a little confused by this.

I've never had a phone in my shared office in the 5 years I've had it (usually shared only in the most nominal sense) While others had one, I can't recall ever seeing anyone else using a campus phone or hearing one ring outside of the department office. I'm sure there are small numbers of older faculty members attached to their phones, but I really don't think there are that many of them.

The people who I assume actually use their desk phones are staff-if you have a job where you are at a desk somewhere it is sometimes easier-if you need some particular piece of information or clarification on something-to just call the person over in the deans office or registrar or whatever because you can grad their attention for 2 minutes and deal with some problem right then.

I don't really see how Zoom is a replacement for that function of office phones. It isn't a system designed to have people cold calling each other. It's a meeting app.

[marshwiggle]

I don't really see how Zoom is a replacement for that function of office phones. It isn't a system designed to have people cold calling each other. It's a meeting app.

Absoloutely. Here are a few vital differences:

• Zoom calls are planned. People can be prepared for video. Even still, many people leave video off. If people were receiving cold calls, video off would probably happen about 90% of the time.
• Phones systems have voicemail. Are people really going to want to send recorded video messages? (And only the absolute techodroids will choose to have their smartphones on all the time so that they're on-call 24/7. I'd retire tomorrow if they required me to do that.)
• Phone calls don't freeze, and unexplained hangups are extremely rare. Zoom is way better than the options a decade ago, but bandwidth issues are still real and frequent.
• Young people use texting a lot more than voice calls, and texting is less immediate than voice calls. It makes no sense that they would choose to go for video as the exclusive alternative to texting.

Since about the 50's, video calling has existed in some form or other, at least on an experimental basis. The technology has advanced by light years since then, but the cultural barriers haven't, so it hasn't replaced phone calls. My prediction is that it won't ever, or at least in my lifetime. 

[Caracal]

I don't really see how Zoom is a replacement for that function of office phones. It isn't a system designed to have people cold calling each other. It's a meeting app.

Absoloutely. Here are a few vital differences:

• Zoom calls are planned. People can be prepared for video. Even still, many people leave video off. If people were receiving cold calls, video off would probably happen about 90% of the time.
• Phones systems have voicemail. Are people really going to want to send recorded video messages? (And only the absolute techodroids will choose to have their smartphones on all the time so that they're on-call 24/7. I'd retire tomorrow if they required me to do that.)
• Phone calls don't freeze, and unexplained hangups are extremely rare. Zoom is way better than the options a decade ago, but bandwidth issues are still real and frequent.
• Young people use texting a lot more than voice calls, and texting is less immediate than voice calls. It makes no sense that they would choose to go for video as the exclusive alternative to texting.

Since about the 50's, video calling has existed in some form or other, at least on an experimental basis. The technology has advanced by light years since then, but the cultural barriers haven't, so it hasn't replaced phone calls. My prediction is that it won't ever, or at least in my lifetime.

Yeah I agree. Its an example of the way ideologies of progress and technological change sometimes can lead people to make weird arguments and assumptions. Nobody has actually created anything superior to a phone call if you want to get someone's full attention at a certain time without planning the interaction beforehand. When there were far fewer options, people used to use phone calls for all kinds of other things, and many of those uses have been largely replaced by other technologies.

You see the same weird argument about email. When email first became widespread, most people didn't have cell phones. When I was in college, email was the main way I communicated with friends. It was totally normal to ask someone to go on a date with you over email. If you wanted to see if some friends wanted to get together and have dinner you sent an email. Most people don't use email that way anymore obviously, and that results in some people deciding that maybe faculty should communicate with students over text or something. But, texting isn't designed for class communications. It works well for figuring out if some people want to come over for dinner but its terrible as a way of getting clarification on why you got a zero on the reading quiz. Email isn't likely to go away because it is much more functional for many professional communications than anything else.

[mleok]

Nobody has actually created anything superior to a phone call if you want to get someone's full attention at a certain time without planning the interaction beforehand.

I agree, but that's also the reason why I have no issue with the university removing my office phone, because the only people who I want to have access to such a direct means of communicating with me already have my cell phone number.

[downer]

Nobody has actually created anything superior to a phone call if you want to get someone's full attention at a certain time without planning the interaction beforehand.

I agree, but that's also the reason why I have no issue with the university removing my office phone, because the only people who I want to have access to such a direct means of communicating with me already have my cell phone number.

Really? I almost never answer my phone unless I know the person calling and want to talk to them. Otherwise, it goes to voicemail. Which I often don't check for a while. Email generally works better.

[spork]

I wonder how much an average university spends to run a Cisco VOIP system. I haven't used my office phone for a year and don't miss it at all.

[Aster]

Until universities install separate physical hardware for videoconferencing to replace the separate hardware that we already have for telephones, I am keeping the phone.

You have a work computer, and you have a separate tablet device or smaller computer. This is how professional businesses are figuring out how to do this. This is how my friends who work out of their house have figured out how to do this. Heck, this is how all of my nieces and nephews are completing their remote classwork right now.

Otherwise, it's a significant managerial and overall work efficiency downgrade to have your work computer serve double-duty as videophone, even if you've adjusted the software enough to minimize the application into a purely audio feed. Until this type of technology has been measurably improved to function more like a phone, and your operable use of your computer monitor and regular working computer applications (e.g., emailing) are not significantly affected, its better to keep your hardware options open.

[Caracal]

Nobody has actually created anything superior to a phone call if you want to get someone's full attention at a certain time without planning the interaction beforehand.

I agree, but that's also the reason why I have no issue with the university removing my office phone, because the only people who I want to have access to such a direct means of communicating with me already have my cell phone number.

Sure, me too. But that's mostly reflective of the kind of jobs we have. People with administrative jobs where lots of time sensitive things are being tossed at them by different people are probably more likely to think that, in some circumstances, a quick phone call is a much easier way to sort out some problem than sending a series of emails back and forth.

[Aster]

People with administrative jobs where lots of time sensitive things are being tossed at them by different people are probably more likely to think that, in some circumstances, a quick phone call is a much easier way to sort out some problem than sending a series of emails back and forth.

+1. I'd add that this is not limited to staff jobs. Quick phone calls are also one of the most optimal way to get things done for any faculty who have regular administrative duties (e.g., deans, department heads, lab managers, academic advisors).

For example, here is a comparison of how regular, day-to-day things often get resolved at Big Urban College (in my department).
This: Question resolved with single phone call - 4 minutes with little/no miscommunications. Wham. Bam. Done. Everybody happy.
Or This: Question resolved via multiple back-and-forth emails - 2-4 days, half of which is spent repeating, including, or stating in another way whatever it is that the parties are trying to communicate to one another. Much of the other half is just waiting around for the other parties to get around to communicating back. Now add a large amount of personal angst, emotional pissiness, impatience, and overall disgust in collegiality that results from such a crappy way to communicate.