[LINK] SMH: 'Online universities fail to make the grade'

[Roger Clarke]

Online universities fail to make the grade
The Sydney Morning Herald
Date: Monday, November 15 2004
By David Rood
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/11/14/1100384429986.html?oneclick=true

Virtual universities have been a catastrophic failure despite early 
predictions that web-based learning was a "tsunami that was sweeping 
[the] ivy-clad university of the past away", according to a leading 
Australian academic.

Monash University professor Simon Marginson argues that global 
e-learning ventures have not attracted a critical mass of students 
because they failed to understand that online degrees do not command 
the same status from students, academics and the community as 
traditional qualifications.

His research has serious implications for the beleaguered Universitas 
21 Global - a consortium of 16 universities including Melbourne 
University, University of NSW, University of Queensland and US 
publisher Thomson Learning - which has fallen dramatically short of 
student and financial forecasts.

With unmet demand for higher education in China alone estimated to 
number 45 million students by 2015, international or cross-border 
virtual education was seen as the panacea for surging global demand.

But Professor Marginson says that for most students in the 
Asia-Pacific region, an online degree is a less attractive 
qualification than a face-to-face degree acquired in a foreign 
country or the campus of a foreign university in the student's 
country.

"The dream that must be abandoned is ... the vision of an 
Anglo-American curriculum beaming in Star Trek fashion to every 
corner of China, with prestigious professors on the website and the 
minimum of interactive servicing," he writes in a report to be 
published in next month's Higher Education Quarterly in Britain. 
"Higher education is not an entirely standardisable product, a 
Starbucks or McDonald's that can be rolled out everywhere just like 
that."

"Hyper-optimism" caused online ventures to predict an economic 
bonanza from e-learning, Professor Marginson writes, but it is 40 to 
50 per cent more expensive per student to run a successful online 
teaching program than a face-to-face one.

Professor Marginson is the director of Monash University's Centre for 
Research in International Education.

The collapse of online ventures established by internationally 
regarded universities should have "sent alarm bells ringing" at other 
institutions, Professor Marginson writes.

In 2001 New York University On-line collapsed after attracting just 
166 students. The British government-backed UK e-University met a 
similar fate.

Among the global providers to fall well below expectations is 
Universitas 21 Global, the brainchild of the former Melbourne 
University vice-chancellor, Alan Gilbert.

Launched in 1997 at a cost of $7.6 million to Melbourne University, 
the venture initially predicted 1000 students by 2003, and 27,000 
students by 2005. Melbourne University had expected to earn $40 
million annually by 2010.

U21Global has around 400 students enrolled in its MBA program.

Melbourne University vice-principal and U21Global director Ian 
Marshman said global education ventures "where brand and reputation 
are all important" took time to become successful.

-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, U.N.S.W
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science, Australian National University