No, Mr University, I expect you to die
Martin Weller,
The Ed Techie,
Jul 19, 2021
It was a natural, I think, following the acquisition of EdX by an online program management (OPM) company, to come up with a categorization blending the two. And it's not unrealistic to imagine this new blend, which we'll call OPX, continue the undermining of the university system as it takes on more and more contracts from various institutions to manage their online programs. That's what Holon does, that's what George Siemens reports, and this is how Brian Lamb responds: "If your 'plan' for higher ed is to outsource to an OPM... maybe... quit? Don't worry, corporatization, privatization and the drive to learning as commodity will somehow manage without you." Martin Weller points out that this is only one of four scenarios for the future of online learning. Now I have a hard time seeing the university system somehow defying the odds to survive and save the day, though I guess they are best framed as defenders of class and privilege like James Bond. My preference would be to sustain a publicly-funded community-based model, as I outlined at OECD in 2006, despite the misgivings of David Wiley (who was in the room when I outlined it).
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