Is Content King in Education any more?

How should educational institutions consolidate their competitive advantages within a very fragmented and increasingly competitive context? Will the educational experience in itself, associated with a strong brand continue to provide the main competitive advantage for some leading universities? Given that access to information and contents these days is virtually limitless, with a lot of educational content distributed via openware, will content be king, and the companies able to create content, the winners? Or is it possible that Learning Management Systems (LMS) and other educational platforms will emerge as emperors? Is it possible for wealthy educational institutions to combine their presence on all these fronts?

As things stand, it is hard to see how things will evolve; there is a lot of uncertainty and lack of knowledge about the effectiveness, the implementation timing and the viability of ICT in education. In my view, some analysts have overreacted, predicting a tsunami in the educational sector. Given the heavy regulation it is subject to, the existence of a powerful public sector, and the general inertia and conservatism of the main education stakeholders, I don’t think this is very likely. MOOC platforms are possibly the most representative players, some of whom aspire to becoming content distributors and deliverers of programs offered by the traditional educational institutions. I have looked in greater detail at the MOOC phenomenon in a previous post here in LinkedIn Pulse and how they have disrupted education (1). Here, I would like to assess the likelihood of MOOCs becoming dominant competitors or in players able to capture a significant amount of the added value generated by educational activity.

In my opinion, the two MOOC providers with the best long-term outlook are EdX and Coursera. EdX, set up by Harvard University and MIT is a not-for-profit project that offers educational institutions providing free education the use of its platform, and could well emerge as the benchmark in this segment. Partners that use EdX’s platform for MOOCs or for their own programs receive a percentage of the earnings from programs of between 40 percent and 60 percent. More than 90 institutions in the educational and corporate learning sectors are currently using EdX’s platform.

Coursera has more than 150 partners in the education sector, and invests in creating MOOCs with its partners, receiving up to 50 percent of earnings, although not when partners use its programs for internal use.

Will the biggest players in the education sector rush to join these MOOC platforms for fear of missing out, as in the musical chairs game? If this happens, then the leading MOOC players will likely develop into providers of content, LMS, educational platforms, online meetings, and conferencing applications. Obviously, the competitive advantage of the universities and corporate learning units taking part in these huge consortia will be based on the differentiation provided by their academics, program managers, and by the characteristics inherent in the learning process.

Another interesting development is the growing use of the social networks as learning platforms and content distributors, particularly LinkedIn, which in 2015 bought Linda, an online training company focused on business, technology, and creative skills, in a move that was a clear attempt to create synergies with the executive development and education sector: “Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”, said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn.  As LinkedIn grows, at the same time as building a more complete picture of its members’ activities, both personal and professional, it could soon be in a position to come up with courses to enable them to reach their goals.

Allow to formulate some suggestions for the leaders of educational institutions, -provosts, deans, program managers- that operate in open markets and would like to stay competitive:

-Search for fruitful, long term strategic alliances with LMS, MOOCs platforms and ICT providers, based on al synergies and shared visions.

-Implement the means to expose faculty to technology supported learning.

-And above all, try to develop a unique learning experience. In my opinion, in a sector where content is not King any more, where Technology is a means, but not the end, what can become the real emperor is the distinctive learning experience that each university or school offers, in terms of campus (physical and virtual), diversity of the student body, access to networks, interaction with faculty and stakeholders.

A fascinating environment that requires, on the side of academic managers, vision, speed and passion.

Notes

(1) https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/20140709182023-557690-taking-moocs-seriously?trk=mp-author-card