Lounge

Sustainability (in a word)

If the pitch is to put a few HE's ou of business by providing a leaner more agile system, no problem, except that, aside from the number of valuable employer-desired qualifications that can be garnered through a wholly online, non human assessment, is very low, the bigger problem is cost of pedagogy against return.

If we take the say the four figure example as a test. If its much less than that, then you may have difficulty finding knowledge supply chains willing to invest in sufficiently robust, quality learning I.P. to provide the enriched distant learning provisions, and much more than that and you are back to a more trusted (old school) model (called a univeristy fee) whether foundation, BA or Masters (or Level 3,4,5 qualification)

If the proposition is to blend the test mentioned with human assessment then that four figure costs goes up even higher.

I'm not sure there's any great secret that providing "ad supported" or otherwise free (or even freemium) supported learning comes back to the same problem. Theres a finite cost of creation and a finite cost of assessment.

Those places that are exploring  less ambitious (but no less worthy goals) for example  MIT OWC Initiative or Stanford Itunes U have something to do this with. A $750million dollar endowement between them.

If you have the financial model, go for it. But Id recommend running the assessment and publishing costs by a publisher and a qualified examiner in your (unstated) subject area.

"my gut reaction comment is who are you (anon account etc)?"

A very private person.

"That aside, salary being related to cost of education is not necessarily true. What salary you need is related to your cost of living, of which debt (for education or something else) is one part of it, and probably not the deciding factor."

Granted, but having the equivalent of one house payment, instead of two (with a 6 figure education debt) can only increase the individual's range of potential employers, and therefore improve his bargaining position.

"So is the point getting cheap qualified labour for companies? or qualifications more cheaply?"

The point is to provide a way for private industry to support a low cost education as a potential precursor to a profitable business model.  I don't think that setting up such a system will be terribly expensive (no more than traditional advertising). It also creates a demand for the testing services which (assuming they make the tests a fair assessment of the testee's knowledge) they can provide at a profit. The fact that someone can take the courses and get the education without ever taking the certification tests is just icing on the cake. If the education is not free, the incentive to enter this particular market is diminished, and the business model fails. So, to answer your question, both, plus competing with the current system.

"If not all degree awarding bodies are treated equally, then in a similar degree, the actual grade and certification is only part of what the value of the education is, where it is from, who it was done with, what extras were done on the course, and I guess that list can go on and on - contribute to value."

This is where the reputation of the certification body comes in. Just as a degree from Harvard is given more weight than a similar degree from FlyByNight University, The certification agencies will work to build and keep a reputation for certifying only qualified applicants. Just as some businesses will not accept a degree from FlyByNight University, Participating businesses will advertise and list which certification agencies from which they will accept certifications. If a certification agency is lax in its testing, it will gain a reputation as a flybynight, and may be removed from these lists.

With regard to those things which contribute to the value of the degree or certification: In the end, the value of the education is the benefit (both "spiritual" and material) the the person derives from that education, regardless of the individual elements which make up that education. If a person values those extras, they are free to pursue whatever educational path affords them those things which they value.

"Ironically, just because there is more competition does not mean that the cost of delivering a degree will go down. perhaps with less students it could go up as the base costs are the potentially the same and the only the easily removable scaling costs can be mitigated. A lecturer has the same salary and it still takes a room if he lectures 10 or 11 just less people paying for it so base cost could go up."

True, this will potentially drive the less efficient educational institutions out of business. This increases the overall efficiency of the entire system, while still providing a low cost (or free) education for anyone who wants it.

"For the courses, you talk about open source courses, do you mean creative commons? http://creativecommons.org"

Yes, sorry, that is exactly what I mean. 

Agreed, Khan is doing some very cool stuff with the mapping of learning objects to videos and quiz questions.  

Interesting thread, and associated article.  I had many of the same questions as you  about the content (or lack thereof) of the article.

I'm in the US, and was not familiar with Minister Grove (or calling government officials "Minister" for that matter).    

The more I read, the more I am impressed with the users of this site.