Very insightful commentary from Matt Culbertson at ASU. Here are some excerpts...
Future of education lies online | ASU Web Devil - ASU's Online News Source
The role of the information gatekeeper isn’t what it used to be. There’s a diminished role of authority regulating the flow of information and decided what content passes forward —and anyone can be a mass-communicating producer and consumer of content.
Every industry and institution that functions as an information provider is facing more competition than ever before.
In some ways, the same forces driving newspapers and more isolated cases of traditional media bankrupt threaten the university model.
An April commentary article in the Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out that universities have a weakness with large, low-level undergraduate classes. An increasing number of online classes from for-profit groups threatens that revenue source.
The author cited the regulatory wall of college accreditation to bar competition, but private sector competition to the university environment is on a growth trend — more students than ever take classes with for-profit institutions like Kaplan University and the University of Phoenix.
A 2008 study by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation found that 22 percent of American college students took at least one online class in the fall 2007 semester.
But universities should be wary of the Internet’s tendency to kill business models — newspapers, recording labels and soon maybe the rest of traditional media demonstrate that lesson.
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