Why Universities Should [and must] Accept Classes by Udacity, Coursera, MR, etc.?

A mission of a university can be "to educate future leaders," "to educate responsible citizens," "to teach and disseminate certain kind of ideas," "to advance science, the arts, and good literature,""to explore, create, and challenge knowledge," "to change a country," "to change a continent," "to change the world!!!," etc. The mission represents an enormous challenge that requires a lot of good judgment, resources, discipline, and focus [and much more!].  

Now, lets imagine a universities [be it public, private, in a developed, or a developing country] can get some resources for free. The consequence is that it is now going to be easier, or not as difficult, to accomplish its mission.

Free online classes offered by Udacity, Coursera [and now Marginal Revolution University!], etc., are free, good quality, resources that universities can take advantage of. Universities worldwide should look at these providers as complements rather than competitors or substitutes [imagine a baker who can get some important ingredients for free! Should he take them?]. 

The mission of a university is not to teach a sociology class, or a economics class, the mission is much greater than that. Accepting classes offered by online providers just makes it easier [and cheaper!] to accomplish the greater mission. 

More specifically, why universities should accept these classes for credit?

1) It is a way to reduce the problem of overcrowding in public universities [think about universities in Cameroon, Nigeria, etc., etc.]. This happens especially in introductory classes, and it is also a common problem in developed countries.  

2) This will free some resources for other educational purposes: to teach advanced and interdisciplinary classes, to apply concepts to case studies, to do applied research, etc.

But probably the most important reason is that this will let a university to allocate more resources to accomplish its mission. 

In fact, it seems that if universities do not do that [meaning accepting online classes] it is because they are not really mission driven. 

Why wasting resources in teaching some knowledge that is already free online, when one can apply it to generate solutions and more knowledge? 

The future of the university

If one takes this video (Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education) seriously, I wonder what the future of universities is, especially those in developing countries or non-top schools in developed areas.

Let's assume that person "A," who lives in a small town in country "Z", will go to college. 

She can choose among: 

1) a prestigious school in the US that, with founding from a foundation, offers accredited online degrees such as the ones Koller is talking about. 

2) a public university for free (that is, tax funded), or 

3) a private university where she has to pay around US$ 1,200 a year, or US$ 6,000 for 5 years. 

If she takes an economic decision based on costs and benefits, she will factor in the prestige of the US University, the personalized approach of the online degree, and the lower cost. Chances are she will chose the prestigious school.

If the behaviour of person "A" generalizes, demand for public and private schools in country "Z" will go down, but it will not be zero. 

The question is: what is the future of the existing schools in this context? To survive they will have to focus on the academic tasks that can not be massively delivered online, such as:

1) Applied research to serve their local communities (social sciences, health, etc.)

2) Post-graduate degrees (MAs and PhDs), although low-cost online programs will come as well. 

3) Teaching classes that need hands-on work in areas like engineering or medicine, etc.  (although it is already possible to dissect a cadaver digitally :).  

To summarize, the new way of delivering online education will bring an international division of labor where local schools will have to be involved in the applications of the knowledge learnt online.

They could very likely become applied research-and-teaching universities. 

"The Innovative University"

These are a few ideas of the many in this book (Christensen and Eyring 2011):

• The higher education model in the US has been seriously questioned. The bottom line is that research is expensive and probably unsustainable at its current pace due to financial constraints. Besides, as faculty have focused more on research they have given less attention to undergraduates. As a consequence the quality of undergraduate education has suffered. 
• Since its beginnings Harvard shaped the DNA of higher education. This includes the creation of tenure based on research, summer classes, majors, etc. Other schools have copied the Harvard model, some have been more successful than others at doing this. The authors of The Innovative University argue that to be Harvard schools need to have the resources that Harvard has, which is almost impossible. That is why imitating the Harvard model is not for every school. The model is very expensive because high caliber research is very expensive. 
• The universities that will survive are those that will offer the highest value for the money to their students, those that focus on their strengths (mission and values), and those that make the tough choices to focus on specific programs and goals. Currently most universities can’t do everything (graduate education, undergraduate education, research, sports, etc.).
• Some schools have defined research more broadly. For them research is not only about discovery but it includes studying how current discoveries can be applied to practical problems. Research about teaching and learning can play an important role as well. Engaging undergrads in faculty research can be very valuable too. 
• Online education is a disruptive innovation, it can be pedagogically effective and it is also much cheaper; its reach will increase. But online education can’t replace traditional (face-to-face) education completely. There is still a future for the traditional classroom experience. Most universities however must seek a right balance between on-line and traditional education. Some will probably do well if they specialize in one or the other.

I read the The Innovative University with universities in Latin America in mind. What road should they follow given the changes that US schools face? One aspect is tenure. The authors argue that tenure to promote research was key to innovation that led to prosperity in the US. Tenure in itself, they say, is not a problem nowadays. It can actually be very useful if the process through which it is granted responds to the mission and values of each school. In Latin America several private schools have adopted the tenure model, especially Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. Some universities in these countries have also put more emphasis on research.

As the emphasis on research in many US universities decreases it would be a mistake to abandon the tenure-research model that some universities in Latin America have adopted. Especially now that income is increasing in the region. It is true that research is expensive but to move innovation forward it is important that at least one or two schools in each country move in that direction. Innovation that responds to local needs is urgent; as it is research that can link universities and the industry. Tenure and research are still the common practices in the US, but they are exceptions in most Latin American countries. As it happens now in the US, research is not for everyone, but it will remain a niche for some schools. The hope is that some schools in Latin America start discovering that niche. 

Grades

We use a unique set of linked administrative data sets to explore the determinants of persistence and academic success in university. The explanatory power of high school grades greatly dominates that of other variables such as university program, gender, and neighbourhood and high school characteristics. Indeed, high school and neighbourhood characteristics, such as average standardized test scores for a high school or average neighbourhood income, have weak links with success in university.

That is the abstract of the paper based on Ontario data "Persistence and Academic Success in University" by Dooley, Payne, and Robb (February 2012). 

The authors offer some policy implications:

First, there is a positive message regarding the educational system in Ontario. Students in our sample from disadvantaged neighborhoods and high schools with weaker performance on standardized tests are as well prepared for university as students with the same individual high school grades but from advantaged neighbourhoods and higher performing high schools. Viewed from the university perspective, the positive message is that these four institutions provide an environment in which students with similar high school grades but otherwise heterogeneous backgrounds have very similar likelihoods of success.

I am not surprised. Probably I expected that gender, "being female," would have a more important explanatory power.  

How generalizable are these results? My hunch is that they are, even in developing countries. Take a student with high high-school-grades from a rural area, take her to one of the top universities in a country. Odds are she will do very well. Of course predicting success at University might be more complex, but high school grades seem to be a reasonably good rule of thumb.