Peter Scott and MOOC continued

The final part of the Peter Scott article includes a comment about Business Schools. It comes just after a claim that the "top" universities ( his quote marks ) will stand aside and above whatever else is going on.

But as for the rest – the institutions attended by the bulk of students (to which the extra students liberated by Osborne's generous lifting of the cap will be directed) – who can tell? Universities will be very tempted to offer high-volume, low-cost, big-appeal courses, even if they add little long-term value to either students or the country. The business school bubble could well be pumped up still more. Can courses in "celebrity" be far behind?

This might be the MOOC as unmentionable, high volume low cost, but what strikes me is the mention of a "business school bubble" as if this was well known. Presumably the views of Peter Scott are widely shared in some academic circles and some people know what he refers to. But it would be good to know more about this, maybe in the Guardian. I'm not sure how business schools are regarded. Sometimes they seem to publish content critical of business and distant from technology as if this will establish them better with people in other subject areas.

I have found a blog post with a hype cycle for the MOOC. If this is roughly right then 2014 could be interesting as something survives the negative press and adapts for the longer term. I also wonder if there has been a similar chart for business schools. Not sure of the dates but I think in the UK the "top" universities came in quite late. 

By the way, there is a sort of course in celebrity already. The Futurelearn course on Brands includes a look at yourself as a brand on social media. Also included briefly in the Southampton course on Web Science. Will I get any value from these courses? Too early to tell.

Self Driving Boat could start with a canal test

More  thoughts after previous post on a boat similar to a self-driving car. Trying out a Google search you get quite different results for "self-driving car" and "self-driving boat". The car is fully automatic, you just tell it where you want to go. "Self-driving boat" though is one you drive yourself rather than being a passenger with a professional crew and/or captain. Most results relate to a canal holiday, so this is not as complicated as navigating at sea.

So a canal could be a good place to test some kit. Probably with a professional crew as well for safety reasons. To start with, can the kit know where you are? What will it tell you about where to go next? Exeter could be a good place to start as the canal is fairly straight. I know the canal through Lancaster is quite bendy and the route from King's Cross to ExCel is complicated. They could be tested later.

I will try to raise this on the Wild Show tomorrow, depends on what else turns up. Could fit in soon though.

Peter Scott and the MOOC

 Guardian Education today has an article by Peter Scott that continues some themes from last year. Worth a look in some detail because there is now not much in the Guardian about universities. This post is mostly in not form, there may be more later depending on what else turns up about the MOOC. there has been so little in the Guardian, and that little mostly negative comment, so this could change sometime soon as the MOOC is not going away.

Actually no mention of the MOOC, unlike last year, but is it somewhere in mind?

The only straw at which they can clutch now is that, as private providers pile in to offer higher education-lite, fees will fall and the total bill to the public will be cut.

.........

Is it too alarmist to imagine a dystopia in which higher education-lite is delivered by a de-professionalised academic workforce (on zero-hours contracts)?

My guess is that this "higher education-lite" is assumed to include all the MOOC offers, wherever they come from. Futurelearn is from the Open University but so far no distinction has appeared in the Guardian.

Peter Scott seems to think that there can be a return to full state funding of a university system on the previous model without any consideration of technology or costs. what was Mode 2 supposed to be about? Was it really open to the sort of knowledge found in practice outside universities? There is learning online in various forms. I don't think there can be much doubt that the technology for something like a MOOC is now widely available. It will come from commercial sources unless something else is available.

Of course, our "top" universities will never behave like that, or only a little – special deals are always available for royal dukes. Harvard does not behave like the University of Phoenix. To do so would be brand suicide.

So for the UK the "top" could mean UCL, Imperial, Oxford Cambridge and the Institute of Education each ignoring Futurelearn to establish a difference. Not sure this will work indefinitely. Is it really good positioning to reject technology?

Meanwhile FUN from France is not reported in the Guardian as far as I know. Could be an approach to a complete national system.

Blackwells on Exeter Campus into Feb, Futurelearn

 Visit to Blackwells on Exeter campus today. Still there and likely to be there in February. Last year it was possible the shop would close at the end of this month. See previous posts for how the bookshop was demolished for the new Forum to be possible. Somehow a bookshop was not thought to be part of the new retail space design. Now of course this blog is about new technology but there is a time range in the scope that is not at all clear and some sort of bookshop could continue for many years to come without blocking other aspects of the blend. From what I hear Blackwells are prepared to continue a bookshop and consider it viable. There is now a stock of Nooks , one with a dedicated e-reader screen and the other suitable for video. However it is more or less hidden away at attic level in what was Devonshire House, not that easy to find from the Forum. (By the way, the coffee at ground level is reasonably priced and there is often seating available)

When the Forum first opened the bookshop existed for weeks at a time in various places. What would be wrong with a permanent location? The closure date is not yet clear as far as I know but why not open in April and May? There might be some interest from outside the university if the bookshop was stable and better known.

Meanwhile in Southampton there is discussion on the future of the campus. They seem to be thinking about a continuing campus for face to face meetings but also possibly having lectures online. Less space for lecture halls and a different sort of library. This is more substantial as change. Just not having a bookshop is design as a surface.

Don Nutbeam

A while ago there was comment in Exepose in support of a bookshop. This seemed to drop away, possibly because of a change in editors. There will be another issue on Tuesday week. I will check for any definite news on how long the current bookshop will survive. Maybe there will be editorial on whether a bookshop should be supported. 

Next week the Exeter / Futurelearn course on Climate Change will be starting. I don't know what else is happening in Exeter. Futurelearn still seems to be on the edge of what a UK university is working on. New buildings are still the priority.

I will be talking about some of this during the Wild Show on Phonic FM most Thursday mornings. It is mostly music but there is some space for chat. Also mp3 from other sources is welcome.

Content Marketing is the old Native Advertising

 The Guardian is about back to normal, still not many pages on Media or Education but similar to most of last year.

Emily Bell writes about "Native Advertising" , latest description for apparently editorial content actually written by advertisers. Expect lots more of this, especially in digital streams such as Twitter etc.

(By the way I just retweeted a Huawei guide to security, I'm not at all sure about the UK situation)

Anyway there is one paragraph I would like to explore

Every person and institution can now make their own messages and potentially have as much impact as the largest corporation. The occlusion of motive is becoming more problematic in many areas of communication, but at least in native advertising there is an identifiable commercial transaction.

Is this eventually getting closer to recognising the bloggers and citizen journalists? I think she probably means that only the motives of proper journalists can be trusted. As memory serves towards the end of last year she claimed that only journalists can hold power to account. So the stream of bits and pieces has little consequence anyway, wherever it comes from.

I still would like to know more about why Guardian Talk Unlimited was closed down. The readers have since been segmented into various communities selected by the marketing department. Why was there no warning of the closure? Is there a backup somewhere? Could the people who contributed content ever get a copy to recycle? Who knew what when and soforth?

Emily Bell is also concerned about the state of proper journalism, as in the conditions of an interview. 

When CBS's primetime current affairs show 60 Minutes recently ran an exclusive interview with Amazon boss and new newspaper owner Jeff Bezos, it pitched him no hard questions and allowed him to demonstrate his potty scheme for deliveries by drone. This was not advertising, but nor was it really journalism; the access the programme gained reduced its appetite for inquiry and analysis. Advertising is everywhere, as fluid and malleable as the streams it inhabits. And increasingly there will be no lines, blurred, blue or otherwise.

Jeff Bezos is not going to answer any questions he chooses not to. The future of the interview is unclear but may depend on questions that achieve volume. Not this blog then, readers seems to be asleep this year so far.