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You're Simply the Best
260 Plays7 months ago
Welcome to another episode of Online Education Across the Atlantic, where today we explore the intertwined issues of higher education crises and political impact, the evolving landscape of online education assessments, and the contentious world of educational rankings. We dive into how the declining enrollment might shake up the next U.S. elections and discuss the impact of financial oversights in tech-oriented educational firms like 2U. Furthermore, we question the methodology behind new initiatives like Times Higher Education's move to rank online programs and contrast these with the real needs of online education — highlighting the oversight of critical factors like technology integration and faculty training. Join us as we navigate these complex topics, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of how online education can be effectively evaluated and ranked. Stay tuned for more insightful discussions on the future of education on both sides of the Atlantic.
00:00 Addressing financial concerns with proactive PR strategy.
05:18 Challenging to respond to agenda-driven critique.
07:29 Concerns about huge impact on education system.
10:05 Higher education funding impacted by political events.
13:47 Good at quiz shows, concern about news.
19:39 Optimistic about potential benefits of education rankings.
20:49 Rankings and student feedback on university programs.
26:49 Doubtful interpretation of online education rankings.
29:18 Critique of US news and rankings defensiveness.
31:55 Concerns about understanding online education delivery and funding.
38:02 Challenges of opposing influential university rankings system.
39:30 Evie Cummings leads UF online program successfully.
42:33 Exciting developments in online education
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
and welcome to Online Education Across the Atlantic here with Neil Mosley and Glenda Morgan. And we've spared you the airing of grievances that we started off our informal chat before the podcast.
Times Higher Education Rankings Announcement
00:00:22
Speaker
We'll spare you that, but looking forward to our discussion today and the main topic we're going to be getting into that's really triggered by the Times Higher Education announcement that they're going to start doing rankings of online education.
00:00:36
Speaker
And so that's the topic we're going to explore in depth. But as always, ahead of time, just sort of do a roundup of the news and see what we're seeing that's going on.
2U's Financial Position and Criticism Response
00:00:46
Speaker
Neil? Yeah, I think one of the things that grabbed my attention this week was the kind of 2U piece. So 2U put out a piece called Setting the Records Straight. And it was essentially their response to criticism or analysis. I'm not entirely sure.
00:01:04
Speaker
I think the term you're looking for is concerned trolling. Concerned trolling, yeah that is a wonderful way of putting it around their financial position and I thought it was interesting that they went to the lengths to actually put something out like that and I was
00:01:24
Speaker
I've been engaging and concerned trolling probably, as have you guys probably. So I just thought it was an interesting PR strategy to put something out like that and address it so directly around, yes, we were aware of our situation, we're working to deal with that and there's not anything to worry about. And I guess I kind of
00:01:47
Speaker
maybe broadside's a bit strong but a kind of a kind of robust defense against those that might be might be criticizing or predicting kind of shut down. I can't really recall anything like that that I've seen previously in this kind of space and I was interested to know what you guys thought whether you guys have you know maybe more insight than I do around
00:02:13
Speaker
whether there's particular actors and organizations that they're responding to in respect to that or whether this is just to kind of look nothing to see here move along guys yes well i i i have some strong feelings because the original post
00:02:30
Speaker
was like, oh, we're so worried about if 2U goes under this organization that we have attacked nonstop for several years in somewhat unreasonable sort of fashion. There are certainly things I don't like about the OPM business. There are certainly practices that I can be very critical of and stuff like that. But they get so many things wrong.
00:02:53
Speaker
And if there's one thing I really care about, it's intellectual honesty, and they just don't have that. I mean, today there's a piece out about how OPMs don't use data-driven enrollment models. They pretty much invented data-driven enrollment models, you know? You're frowning, Phil. You actually copied and pasted it to me. I know about you. No, no, no. I'm definitely not disagreeing with you on that. It was definitely problematic.
00:03:21
Speaker
You know, so much of what is of that criticism is not based, in fact, it is disingenuous. And it's often being driven by bad research. But it really is concern trolling. It's like, oh, what happens if they go under? It's like, you've had as one of your goals for seven years to make them go under. And the goal of putting out this release is to help them go under. Yes, absolutely. I mean, that's what they're actually about.
00:03:49
Speaker
These groups putting this out are part of what we've written about quite a bit, the Arnold Ventures Coalition, which we've written about activists who are really driving the Department of Education policy in the
Influence of Arnold Ventures on Education Policy
00:04:02
Speaker
U.S. And so if you go look at the article in particular, the two you were responding to, that's two funded groups from the Arnold Ventures Coalition.
00:04:12
Speaker
specifically trying to generate fear. So I definitely agree with Morgan. I'm just adding to it. It's the same folks and it's the same thing. And that is their goal, is to hurt to you. I'm quite sure about that. Now, having said that, you asked the other question about that really gets to two use response. Should they have just said, it's the same groups. This is so predictable. Leave it alone.
00:04:40
Speaker
And it is interesting that they chose to reply and give their arguments about liquidity, and we're not even considering shutting down operations. That's not one of the options. Left unsaid in that is bankruptcy is an option, but that doesn't mean they stop operating.
00:04:58
Speaker
It's the same groups we've written about that we're seeing, but I don't know if it was a good idea or not for you to respond. It's got very educated people like you saying, huh, that's interesting. Let me think about this more, as opposed to just, oh, that's another hit piece and let's just wave it on. So I'm not at all convinced it was a good move.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean it's always challenging around these kind of things because like you said and have pointed out previously and through the kind of things you put out, there is an agenda-driven critique of two-year and so not simply a case of a company responding to criticism per se. There's kind of also something behind it and something other things going on but
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's always the challenge of what those things look and, you know, I don't know. I suppose my kind of inclination would be to have said nothing. And I'm not saying I'm right, but I just think it's an interesting kind of calculus that you have to make around that kind of thing. Now, these activist groups are closely aligned with the current Department of Education. And if they had taken a book, a page from the Department of Education's book,
00:06:14
Speaker
to you would have issued a press release saying, it is awesome. We've never been in such a strong position. People are lining the streets to greet us when we come into town. They're ecstatic because that is how the Department of Education has been dealing with the complete disaster that is FAFSA.
FAFSA Fiasco's Impact on Schools and Elections
00:06:33
Speaker
How's that for a segue, Neil? Yeah, well, that's a good segue, but maybe that's the difference between politics and the private sector. But yeah, I mean, that is a good segue to FAFSA because as I noted in our kind of preamble, there's been lots of graphics coming out from you guys around the kind of current state of a situation. And I think we talked a fair bit about it last week. But has there been any further news, any further positive developments on that?
00:07:03
Speaker
Well, I'd say the positive development is people are finally paying attention. And that's where I think the, so there, obviously there were congressional hearings or a hearing this week. And that seems to have finally gotten people to wake up on how big of an issue the FAFSA fiasco is. I'm sticking with FAFSA fiasco. It rolls off the top. Yeah, I think that's our tagline for the story is FAFSA fiasco.
00:07:29
Speaker
But in any case, I mean, it's a huge impact on future enrollment, at least for the next two years, if not more.
00:07:38
Speaker
We don't know what's going to happen, but part of the reason is we don't know whether other errors are going to come out in the processing of these financial aid applications and further delays. In the hearing, I heard one person talking about that he's talked to several private schools where they're not even sure if they can open up in the fall for business.
00:08:00
Speaker
that they I mean with it's not just the enrollment drop but the unknowns and can they even give out financial aid so it's going to have a big impact and some credible people are saying it's going to be bigger than covid on the economic financial impact so what's good is we had a congressional hearing and people are finally paying attention which may mean that there's some sort of response to
00:08:29
Speaker
Well, I hold little hope that we're going to fix the issues because the Department of Ed doesn't show any remorse right now. But maybe the reaction to the problem might be more public and other groups jumping in to try to help solve the problem.
00:08:48
Speaker
because how much has, I mean, obviously we're both kind of in election years. So I'm kind of interested to the extent that this is gonna become an electoral problem for the Biden administration and whether, because obviously we're immersed in the world of higher education. So anything from kind of something that's niche to something as big like this is something that occupies us. But I suppose there's kind of two questions there around the extent to which this is gonna be a challenge
00:09:17
Speaker
around the election, but also the extent to which this is kind of widely reported and understood in the kind of bigger news arena in the States. What is getting bigger outside the education circle? I look forward to our November podcast so that we can actually answer your question. I think I'd have trouble answering it now other than to say if it leads to enrollment drops,
00:09:44
Speaker
of greater than 5% in a single year, meaning it's worse than COVID. You know, 5% to 10%. If it's on the level of COVID, I think it could definitely become an election issue. But that's, I don't know. I mean, I made it. I like to hear us talk about it in November. Morgan, do you have any guesses? Part of my theory is that
00:10:07
Speaker
higher ed gets to have one story in the news. And I think it's Palestine and the war in Gaza. So I think it's a minor thing at the moment. But I think as an issue, it has huge implications for higher ed, you know, I think we're going to see lots of a not insubstantial number of schools potentially go under, you know, and as I wrote about yesterday, the thing that really calls me is that the
00:10:33
Speaker
that the department sort of just doesn't get the optics of it. Like if they just said, oh my gosh, this is terrible. And I want to contest your argument that there's a difference between politics and higher rate. I was thinking about it the other day and.
00:10:49
Speaker
I just said, I said politics in the private sector, but I'm happy for you to test me anyway. You know, I remember in the early days of Instructure, you know, some of what I think people found so appealing about Instructure was that they actually told you what they really thought, as opposed to
00:11:11
Speaker
what they thought you wanted to hear. I remember once years ago being in a briefing with Phil, long before I joined Phil, but we were in a briefing together and he said to Instructure, your analytics suck. And Instructure said, yeah, yeah, they do. I wasn't wrong, but for the record,
00:11:34
Speaker
No and you know I had a big fancy university tell me once and they didn't realize I think the import of the story but they said yeah we called instructor and then said well if we sign on with you we want to drive your your roadmap and the instructor said no no way and uh you know and I wonder if there's a change in instructor but I think higher ed really responds to
00:12:00
Speaker
to straight talk in a way, as opposed to spin and fluff. And maybe that's making higher ed out to be more straight up and better bullshit detectors than they are. But I think there actually is a desire for a more straightforward sort of approach. That's a huge part of the news is the communication, but you're essentially shooting down the argument of
00:12:25
Speaker
Oh, we have to do it because that's what, you know, how people react and structure is proven. No, you can be straightforward. There's one way to look at it. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I don't know if that shoots you down, Neil, but it was an excellent point. Yeah. I mean, it's just a further attempt for a kind of an argument to be generated on this podcast, isn't it? You know, an agreement not.
00:12:48
Speaker
And yeah, mostly it's not about shooting anybody down, it's just taking it an excuse to just go on a rant. I know, I know, I know. Maybe one day there will be a point of genuine further disagreement.
00:13:00
Speaker
Well, before we get to our main topic, then one of our episodes could be like the Saturday Night Live skit where they write really bad copy for the other newscaster to read and they, you know, to embarrass them. Yeah. We'll have to come up with something to embarrass ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Or we had a show over here that the final round of this quiz show is kind of defend the indefensible, which, you know, you're kind of given a question that you have to kind of defend. So maybe,
00:13:28
Speaker
I must admit that I have a passion, an abiding passion for British quiz shows. Like we love them in our household and they don't make anything like it. You know, QI and all of those other ones and the people sort of who appear in them. So we don't have an equivalent in the United States. Yeah. No, we do quiz shows well, I think. There's plenty of things we do badly, but quiz shows maybe we do well.
00:13:54
Speaker
I just wondered as well, I mean, over here in terms of news, I think I said to you guys who've sort of seen a continuing sort of steady stream of the things that we discussed before, challenges around international enrollments, redundancies and cuts in universities, and just more and more of that coming out. And I guess I don't want to delve into that because it's fairly negative, but I just wondered what other things are on your radar. I know you guys are heading to San Diego
00:14:23
Speaker
next week for ASU GSB. I'm just interested in what's grabbed your attention in terms of who's speaking there and what's happening there and any other news you have.
AI Discussions at ASU GSB Conference
00:14:34
Speaker
It's become the conference to go to or one of the main conferences to go to, so it'll be quite interesting. It's getting large. I think they said 7,500 people this year.
00:14:45
Speaker
But if you look at the agenda, it's definitely wrapped around AI. Generative AI is going to be a major topic, which it was last year, but we've had a year, so maybe there's something a lot more substantive on AI. But that's what I expect to get bombarded with over the three days being there. Yeah, they all have like two and a half days just on AI as a sort of starter conference. So that's going to be interesting as well.
00:15:15
Speaker
But if you look at the main conference, it also has quite a bit of AI embedded in there. It's going to be an AI-palooza, from what I can tell.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yay. Yeah, well, I mean, I know plenty of people over here who are completely fatigued, although they understand the kind of importance of discussing it, completely fatigued by AI. And I know I've been to conferences recently where people have kind of said to me, look, I'm just so fed up with another talk on AI. So hopefully they'll have more to bring to the plate than, you know, has kind of been said before, perhaps.
00:15:50
Speaker
I would be much less fatigued if I actually went to talks that had some substance in which I actually learned things but 99% of them I don't and it's not like I know a lot it's just that nobody knows what they're talking about yet and so there's not actually substance there.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, I hold out hope here because ASU GSB like there when the first came around it was so much of a venture capital pitch fest. You walk down the hallway and you get pitched five times for investment.
00:16:21
Speaker
And it's turned into, yes, there are tons of investors there. That's what they do. But they really debate a lot of the topics better than most conferences I go to. So I hold out hope that there could be something substantive around AI here. That'll be the big question for me coming out of it.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of agree with you, Morgan, in the sense of, I guess there's almost kind of a magnetism around a topic like AI that makes everyone want to talk about it. And I think that leads to a lot of talk and it's very hard. I personally find it very hard to find those voices that are really compelling, even in the midst of us not necessarily knowing the future, those voices that have
00:17:05
Speaker
a way of thinking about AI that's kind of compelling even if they don't, you know, know the answers if I can put it like that. But yeah, I'm interested to hear back about, you know, the talks, the food, the general ambiance and experience. I'm going to a conference in Exeter
00:17:22
Speaker
Next week, I'll be thinking of you guys in San Diego while I'm on the kind of English close to the English Riviera, you know, which is obviously going to be I think you've won that one. Anyway,
Skepticism Towards Educational Rankings
00:17:37
Speaker
we were going to talk about online education rankings today. And I think, you know, as you said, Phil, we were kind of inspired a little bit by the fact that Times Higher Education launching online education ranking.
00:17:51
Speaker
I think it's fair to say this isn't the only online education ranking. You guys have the US News one. There's the FT Financial Times online MBA rankings. I think there's a QS kind of online star ranking and there's various other bits and bobs floating around. But yeah, the kind of announcement of a new one is kind of probably one of the drivers for us to kind of discuss that.
00:18:14
Speaker
I'm interested to know, because I don't know what your position is on this, but I'm just interested in terms of a big picture question. You know, are you an advocate of rankings? Do you think they're a good thing?
00:18:25
Speaker
I'm waiting to hear Morgan first, because I know she's got opinions on this. No, I'm not a fan of rankings. I think they're completely bogus and sort of artificial. But I think you had a great line a few weeks ago about they seem destined to succeed in spite of themselves. I can't remember what it was, but it was an awesome line. Doomed to succeed, it was. Yes, doomed to succeed.
00:18:53
Speaker
And they're sort of like as a natural human instinct to want to see rankings, but I think they're so capricious and, you know, especially on something like online presence or something, which, you know, it's not at the program level, it's at the institution level, but there's such a vast difference. And, you know, we've seen the harm that they do in the United States. I mean, people have gone to jail because of these rankings. So it's like a crazy,
00:19:22
Speaker
a crazy system where people are willing to bet their future on trying to game them. And often, there's a broad correlation between quality and how people come up, but I'm not a fan of rankings. In general, I agree. I think that I'm much more optimistic in the case we're talking about today, which I know we'll get into more of the details in our conversation, that you can have some
00:19:50
Speaker
It might even be unintended or secondary benefits if the rankings at least push a few key elements that have been overlooked in the community. And so when the Times Higher Ed not only mentioned one example, the fact that they want to serve, they're saying to participate in the rankings, you have to survey your students. What that by itself is done so seldom, at least in any meaningful, organized, reported way, that it
00:20:20
Speaker
If the rankings just increase schools doing that for online education, I think there's some benefit. So in general, I'm not a fan of rankings, but I also accept it as human nature. And so can we at least get something good out of it? So I'm a little bit more in the middle on this topic. Although I completely agree the US news rankings in particular has led to some pretty bad damage in the US higher education system.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, because I think the rankings thing in relation to kind of hearing students' voice in the main is a good thing, I guess, in terms of kind of engaging with your students to kind of figure out what they feel about your programs and what they feel about the experience. But I think it was an interesting element of the Times Higher survey, which was around asking students and using students as a kind of a gauge for the
00:21:16
Speaker
for the user experience and I think obviously that's I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing but I think this kind of gets to the heart of not just kind of rankings but also kind of reviews in terms of kind of maybe I could put it like this is how qualified are some reviewers to kind of to gauge certain aspects so I have a bit of a running joke with my father-in-law about TripAdvisor
00:21:44
Speaker
You know, and I would joke with him around, I'm probably more interested in what a restaurant critic thinks about a restaurant than, you know, a couple from, you know, another part of the UK that, like, I don't know what they think about food. But so I think there's also that interesting dimension of
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, we want to hear from students and we want to understand their experiences, but there's an element of kind of in what areas might there be, might that be less valuable in terms of trying to gauge things? And I don't know what you guys think about that.
00:22:21
Speaker
Take the TripAdvisor, and maybe this helps me think about surveys. Like if I go, I'm traveling somewhere, and I do TripAdvisor, give me the top 10 restaurants or something like that, if you just take it on the surface level, that's not a good way to go. Because as you said, it depends how qualified are people.
00:22:41
Speaker
You know, if it's a coffee shop, I want somebody who's a snob like me that's like, if you ask for a cappuccino and they say what size, they should get one star max at that point, in my
Evaluating Online Education Quality
00:22:52
Speaker
opinion. But other people will go in and if you read the comments, it's like this place was great. They had strawberry mocha. Like that's not coffee. So it's not good from that regard. But it's still a useful tool because I now have that data. And when I travel, I can skim through
00:23:11
Speaker
reviews and comments and say, oh wait, this person commented about the coffee roasting. This person actually talked about the cappuccino. I actually can get usable feedback on this. So maybe that's my Pollyanna view is that even if the top level numbers might not be useful, just the data collection could have a benefit.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, I guess an extension of that argument is to say, well, why do we need rankings? Why not a kind of review aggregator instead? But anyway, I mean, that's interesting in terms of probably more of a philosophical kind of angle on rankings. I'm interested in terms of thinking around
00:23:50
Speaker
this one in particular, because I guess they've made some interesting choices. So the first of which being, you know, this is not a ranking that looks at courses or programs, but it looks at an institution and the kind of rationale that they've given for that is that they kind of feel like looking at an institution, engaging an institution, they'll be able to see, get a sense of kind of the repeatable quality. If they kind of, if they get to the heart of what the institution is doing around online education,
00:24:19
Speaker
then they think that that'll be a good enough measure to gauge the quality of all of the programs that are offered online. I think that's an interesting approach and I guess I can test that because I think this is an area in which, and certainly where I see, where online education often in the UK has
00:24:40
Speaker
you know, two different origins or two different places, you might have an OPM, you know, a bunch of 5, 10, 15, 20 programs that are run and supported in a very different way to the say 10 programs that might be scattered around your different faculties. And I don't think knowing
00:25:01
Speaker
about the institution in the round is going to really speak to the variety across there. So I guess I'm interested in how that equates to the states and what you think about the decision that's been made to not go to course level, but actually look at the institutions instead. Well, mine is the thing that concerns me is they skip the level that matters. Listen to how you just described it.
00:25:27
Speaker
These 10 programs do this. This other program does this. That's the natural level of fully online education and how it should be judged. So where is the support consistently delivered across a program? And they make this artificial argument, well, we're doing institution because course level is problematic. I'm like, you just skipped over the element that makes the most sense.
00:25:54
Speaker
But even in focusing on the institution, they didn't really ask the questions about what makes an institution good at online. So they don't even really ask about how central is online to the institution, you know, that sort of thing. So it's both at the institutional level, but not at the institutional level. No, it's a great point. So, yeah, so basically the level they're doing this at is definitely problematic. And I think it would have been much better served to say it's program level.
00:26:24
Speaker
And if maybe that's too complex, it's too hard to gather that data or too many choices, well, then you better have a roadmap to get there. Because that's the element, that's the organization that matters is programming. And I'm very concerned that they didn't even really mention it, at least within the slides. Now, I didn't watch the full webinar, but I did look at the slides. So I don't know if I missed some part of the conversation.
00:26:49
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I think I get the sense that there's is a very much a kind of dipping their toe in the water. And so I'm not I'm not sure exactly. I'd like to give them a benefit of the doubt in terms of I'm not sure that they're necessarily convinced of the argument they're making around an institution versus a course level. But
Demographics and Perception of Online Education
00:27:08
Speaker
they maybe just see that as the more as an easier first foray into all of this, if I was going to kind of give them the benefit of the doubt, really.
00:27:18
Speaker
because I attended the webinar and the rankings and one of the big reflections for me was what does what I've heard how does it convey what they feel about and what they think about online education and so one thing that was really interesting was the kind of questioning around you know how many students to have a disability how many are from a low-income
00:27:41
Speaker
household, how many are first generation? And, you know, obviously, no one would make any quibbles about opening access to higher education, but it was interesting the way in which
00:27:53
Speaker
I think online education can sometimes be kind of othered in that it's for this particular demographic and not for everybody. And I've seen that in kind of other rankings and I find that kind of good that they're looking at those things, but also a bit narrow and narrowing of online education. I don't know what you guys think about that.
00:28:17
Speaker
I think that's a really good point. I just, while you were talking, I remembered somebody once told me that I was like the Gordon Ramsay of EdTech and I'm conscious of like yelling, this is bullshit. Yeah. We obviously need a beat button, I think, if you're like Nancy of EdTech. Yeah, I was sort of annoyed by some of that.
00:28:42
Speaker
It sort of struck me that some of this was done by people who didn't know online well, you know, so it's hitting the same sort of things. Like, I'm a pretty ardent feminist, but I'm not sure that it really matters how many women faculty there are.
00:28:58
Speaker
I mean, I want there to be more faculty, who are women, I want them to be paid the same, but I'm not sure that it reflects in quality, you know, in any sort of direct way. So, you know, that was sort of another thing that got me and that was an interesting way. You had a much more thoughtful take on it than I did, in that I just got annoyed.
00:29:18
Speaker
Well, you sent us something earlier on in the week, which was basically a critique of US News. And I think there was a particular paragraph in that, which I think kind of speaks to this, which I think if I can just read a little bit, it's kind of US News moves us through this fantasy land. They also assert a level of purity and sanctimoniousness that is simply not evident in the results. And I think
00:29:39
Speaker
you know I think this is an interesting element and I wonder if it is you know that sanctimoniousness is driven by a sense of defensiveness around rankings because there's been a lot of critiques and you know that they're often positioned as this is something that's really a benefit to students. There's a kind of an element I suppose of PR of those kind of things that seems to kind of
00:30:03
Speaker
maybe be driven by a kind of rebuttal of some of the critiques of rankings. But yeah, I just think that's a really interesting element. There was just such a little emphasis on technology, and technology isn't the be all and end all, you know, design and those sorts of things are.
00:30:22
Speaker
are important, but the things that they called out for technology was the extent to which there was free Wi-Fi and is there a device subsidy? Why do you need free Wi-Fi if you're doing online learning? You know, presumably the point of online learning is that people are not there. So for me, it feels I think, unfortunately, you guys are bringing me down for my initial moderate position on this. But because I'm agreeing with you, but
00:30:52
Speaker
U.S. News, in my opinion, they're sanctimonious and defensive. Times Higher Education, they seem to lack knowledge in this area, so it feels different here.
UN Sustainability Goals in Education Rankings
00:31:04
Speaker
Times Higher Education feels like a more
00:31:08
Speaker
honest or I appreciate the effort. It's just like, oh, I'm not sure you guys get what you're getting into in this case. That's sort of my reading. And it gets into the elements that you guys just described very well. I will add this. I think it's a mistake, I'll be honest, adding the UN sustainability goals into this. This is hard enough to do as it is.
00:31:32
Speaker
on the academic quality. Why are you going to mix this up with the UN sustainability goals as if that is axiomatically good? And even if it were axiomatically good, why are you confusing matters? So I think that was another thing. Unfortunately, you guys are bringing me closer to where you guys view it. Yeah, I mean, I am not kind of in the same place as you, Phil, but I
00:32:01
Speaker
I suppose what how I describe it as I would I would like to see it succeed and do well I would like to see something that's got a robust methodology and I think you know all the things that you guys are saying completely the front of my mind is that I I just didn't get the sense that they really understood
00:32:19
Speaker
online education not just in terms of the kind of experience but also the way in which it's delivered in universities and so you've kind of you've got something around OPMs there but it's kind of like you know questions around essentially kind of financial resourcing per head of student you know if you don't know this get your OPM to tell you the income that they're getting and I there was also another aspect which I think is isn't a bad one which was around you know how much
00:32:47
Speaker
you know, faculty training do you do for online education? But one of the questions I asked in the webinar was around an acknowledgement that when there's kind of outsourced relationships, you may have kind of fairly experienced tutors where there's not the incentive for them to engage in CPD because they're paid and they're contracted in a certain way. Got to say CPD again for our listeners. Continuing professional development, sorry.
00:33:12
Speaker
So, you know, I know that from just other kind of higher education institutions not doing online, but where they've got contracted, you know, tutors coming in, and it's very difficult for them to either pay or incentivize them to do any training. And if you have tutors who are teaching online regularly,
00:33:32
Speaker
how are those kind of things factored in? So I think there's a variance of different models, even within one institution around how online education is done, which makes it more challenging when you're going at institution level with all of this.
00:33:48
Speaker
they don't even seem to get down to that sort of level of question that like they don't even seem to talk about oh to what extent are there student supports or things like that I mean just in terms of because I did go to the way I did watch the webinar but it seemed to be just more about would you recommend this and do you have women faculty yeah so
00:34:08
Speaker
What I'm curious about, and I don't know if I, since I'm the one who didn't do sufficient homework, and this is bringing me back to my college career, I got to fake it even though I only looked at the slides and didn't listen to the lecture here, but one of the questions I have, we're talking about a situation where it appears that they don't really understand the field, the people who are designing this, the rankings and the surveys, good intentions, but there's a lack of understanding
00:34:37
Speaker
During the webinar, could you tell anything from the comments? I don't know what they enabled in terms of chat and Q&A, but could you tell what the reaction of people was, including were there people such as yourself are saying, hey, why aren't you doing this? What was the tenor of the interactions that you saw?
00:35:00
Speaker
You know, I was in the EMEA one and so there were there were questions around particular countries where governments had kind of, you know, found online education problematic and how all that was going to kind of be navigated. I think people
00:35:16
Speaker
I know because I've had numerous conversations with people in the UK there's a lot of uncertainty about whether to take part in this and I think some of that uncertainty is driven by a lack of confidence in the methodology and I think part of the roots of that is maybe times higher education maybe just being a bit tentative about it because it is a new venture and because you know as we said they don't necessarily seem to have a great grasp
00:35:43
Speaker
on it so you know that one of the questions that came up was around the exclusion of business programs because i think when they initially announced they said that business schools were going to be included and it was slightly ambiguous around that kind of thing but they did say that business and management programs would be included just the nba is being excluded so
00:36:02
Speaker
The tenor of the chat was was fine. There was a few kind of specific geography questions There's a few clarifications around methodology, but there wasn't kind of big uproar or big critiques or anything like that But I know just in the UK there's so many people who I've had a conversation with have come to me to ask, you know Do you know what others are feeling about this? So this is kind of general uncertainty about whether we should take part in again to kind of put
00:36:31
Speaker
put a question out there, I'm interested to know if you guys were responsible for that within the institution, would you take part this year or not? I'm interested to know that. And why? If I were, well, first of all, there's sort of an assumed question here, particularly given the theme of this podcast.
Should Institutions Join New Rankings?
00:36:52
Speaker
I don't think this is as well known on the side of the Atlantic. You don't hear people talking about it to give positive or negative.
00:37:00
Speaker
So coming to your question, would I do it? Let's just say I were in charge of an online program. Well, first of all, over here, it's going to be very sparse. Who does participate? And then that's going to lead to some weird situations. And then the methodology, as you mentioned, that you're hearing in the UK side about it is definitely problematic. But
00:37:22
Speaker
Do you avoid it? I wouldn't avoid it completely, but given that, I would look at it from a U.S. institution and say, I definitely am going to participate in two years' time. That's the approach I would take. Yeah. What about you, Morgan? I haven't heard people sort of talking about it really very much. I suspect there'll be a couple of participants of the usual sort of suspects who sort of participate in these kinds of things.
00:37:51
Speaker
I would I do it? I think I would wait. Yeah and I hate to agree but I would yeah. Literally you hate to agree. Yeah well no I don't I don't hate to agree I like to agree probably but um yeah I would wait and I know institutions who said look we're gonna we're gonna write it out this year and see what see what actually what actually happens but I think the thing that would
00:38:18
Speaker
Even if I had a really bad Morgan-type take on rankings, I just think they're such a powerful force.
00:38:28
Speaker
that it's very difficult to kind of stand against them really because we probably have a human inclination to you know just have a nice easy measure like that to kind of rank and just even just seeing the ways in which the QS rankings came out this week and just seeing all of the UK universities who fared really well in subject rankings and how
00:38:52
Speaker
they make such a big play of that in terms of their PR and in terms of their courses. There's just a really powerful pull for these kind of things that I think, even if I was really anti, I think I'd find it difficult to not engage later down the line. But it feels like to me they've got a lot of work to do to gain that kind of credibility because the way I thought about it was, if my life depended on this methodology,
00:39:21
Speaker
then I wouldn't feel super confident in it, but I guess we'll have to see how it all plays out and how it evolves. So an anecdote, just to add in along here, is Evie Cummings, who ran very successfully, in my opinion, the UF Online, University of Florida Online, and is very knowledgeable in different areas of what it takes to do online, how to navigate the political waters.
00:39:48
Speaker
And I doubt that she is a big fan of rankings, particularly from US News and World Report. However, when they ranked UF online is the best online undergraduate program.
00:40:03
Speaker
They marketed the hell out of that. They pushed that very, very strongly. And I suspect, if I'm reading every correctly, that that's going to become the issue here. Does this gain enough credibility that you need to participate or take advantage of it? And then the second question is, can it improve the methodology over time?
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's an element of playing the game. I think there's a there's another thing in that comment, which was in terms of who was actually consulted around the ranking as well, because I think one of the things that time said is that they kind of had the consulted with university leaders at multiple round tables. And the way I read that was, are you really speaking to the right people here? Because I think it's those people
00:40:53
Speaker
that I know of in the UK equivalent to some of the people that you mentioned that I don't think have been engaged in. Can you get the list of who was consulted and we can discuss that here on a podcast episode? Yeah we could get our pen now and you know red cross and blue tick for
00:41:12
Speaker
for them all. But I think there's an element of transparency and consultation around this kind of thing. I think they would have benefited hugely from engagement with the right people on this. And I don't think they have. Amen. I would agree with that. Well, we're definitely going to have to see. I believe, as I saw, so they're going to start in November of this year. But I believe November is data collection. I thought data collection was now, wasn't it?
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, data collection is now. I think they're hoping to get around 200 institutions taking part, but I think November is when. Definitely up until the end of April is the data collection. Oh, man, I really feel like that.
00:41:55
Speaker
my college self again that I read the notes that my frat brother gave to me and then now I just embarrassed myself in front of the class. But we will have to see. I mean it will be quite interesting to track in the November timeframe when these rankings come out and part of the question as we're talking about is who participates
00:42:15
Speaker
And then there's also, is there a correlation with what we perceive as reality and what they do as a ranking? So, hey, it's going to give us some topics to cover in the fall. Yeah, well, I mean, if there's any silver lining, Phil, there's something more for us to write about. Yeah.
00:42:35
Speaker
Hey, well, this has been great. It's great talking to you guys and interesting developments throughout the world of education and online education moving forward. And we look forward to the conversations next week.